2014-2015 Mayo Medical School Application Thread

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This is my reach school...
3.6cGPA, 3.5sGPA, 31MCAT. I only have 30 hours hospital volunteering, but I got 1 publication from my 2 years of research. Only 20 hours shadowing though.
 
This is definitely my dream school also!! >3.9 for both sGPA and cGPA; 33 on the MCAT. Lot of clinical experience, good amount of teaching, good amount of research. I don't think I have outstanding amounts of service, but I definitely have quite a bit of volunteering. I really hope I get a shot here!!!
 
sunflower18 said:
This is definitely my dream school also!! >3.9 for both sGPA and cGPA; 33 on the MCAT. Lot of clinical experience, good amount of teaching, good amount of research. I don't think I have outstanding amounts of service, but I definitely have quite a bit of volunteering. I really hope I get a shot here!!!
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Keep in mind that's only my impression haha, as far as we can see now it looks like you've got a good shot at Mayo so I would stay positive!
 
Hi all! Excited to start the application process in just a few hours. Mayo seems very impressive in all their materials, so I'd be thrilled to get in here. Good luck to everyone!
 
Does mayo ever accept people with under a 30 mcat? there are absolutely zero on applicants on mdapplicants who have, so im thinking they restrict everyone to like some calculation.
 
According to the MSAR, Mayo's 10th percentile is a 30, so theoretically I guess there could be a few below, but probably not too many.
 
mrh125 said:
Does mayo ever accept people with under a 30 mcat? there are absolutely zero on applicants on mdapplicants who have, so im thinking they restrict everyone to like some calculation.
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CCrown said:
According to the MSAR, Mayo's 10th percentile is a 30, so theoretically I guess there could be a few below, but probably not too many.
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Also keep in mind that Mayo only accepts around 80 applicants per year (and this includes MD/PhD students) so 10% of the acceptee pool is only a handful of people. At most 7 or 8 applicants get accepted with MCAT < 30 each year.
 
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What's up party people? I'm looking to join in on the Mayo conversation!
 
Decided to take the plunge here as well! Good luck everyone!
 
Leslie_Knope said:
This is my Uber reach school. I'm still not sure if I'll even apply as my GPA is below the 10th percentile but my MCAT is good.
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I remember in previous threads, they used to say that the screen was around a LizzyM of 63 (though they made no mention of that when I was interviewing).
 
CCrown said:
According to the MSAR, Mayo's 10th percentile is a 30, so theoretically I guess there could be a few below, but probably not too many.
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No need for theory. 10% score below a 30, but rest assured that those 10% bring something unique and wonderful to the table.
 
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gettheleadout said:
Any service experience that stands out? I get the sense that's something Mayo values.
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Precisely. You need to be exceptional in some way to be competitive. Your 'story' means a lot to Mayo and weighs heavily in their assessment of your candidacy.
 
hubriz said:
Precisely. You need to be exceptional in some way to be competitive. Your 'story' means a lot to Mayo and weighs heavily in their assessment of your candidacy.
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I keep hearing this about Mayo, but can someone elaborate on what it really means?
 
hubriz said:
Precisely. You need to be exceptional in some way to be competitive. Your 'story' means a lot to Mayo and weighs heavily in their assessment of your candidacy.
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Well I don't think any school prefers dull, generic drones. The real question is if your story fits with the story that Mayo prefers, and the same could be said for any school. And at the end of the day, Mayo has very high median stats, so that is definitely important to them.
 
gettheleadout said:
Well, the 10th percentile score is a 30. That lower 10% could all have scored 30's.
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Negative. The value for the tenth percentile (30 in this case) is higher than 10 percent of all values of accepted applicants; i.e. 10% scored below a 30.

Edit: I may be wrong here. Some definitions say "below" some say "equal to or below" others say "no agreement". I guess it depends on how MSAR calculated it. Ill defer to getthedealout.
 
BeancheBlanco said:
Well I don't think any school prefers dull, generic drones. The real question is if your story fits with the story that Mayo prefers, and the same could be said for any school. And at the end of the day, Mayo has very high median stats, so that is definitely important to them.
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Everyone that I have met that is matriculating at Mayo next year, including myself, has an exceptional story.
 
hubriz said:
Negative. The value for the tenth percentile (30 in this case) is higher than 10 percent of all values of accepted applicants; i.e. 10% scored below a 30.

Edit: I may be wrong here. Some definitions say "below" some say "equal to or below" others say "no agreement". I guess it depends on how MSAR calculated it. Ill defer to getthedealout.
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Hmm well in that case I'd say we're left with speculation.
 
hubriz said:
Everyone that I have met that is matriculating at Mayo next year, including myself, has an exceptional story.
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I don't doubt that. I just think the same can be said for pretty much any top 25 medical school. You need both the stats as well as something else fairly exceptional to be accepted. Some schools might want exceptional research with publications. Others might want some crazy leadership endeavors. They key is matching to what the specific school wants, because they can afford to be that picky. My point is also that a story won't override non-exceptional stats. Mayo has a very high 10% percentile GPA, even compared to many other top schools.
 
BeancheBlanco said:
I don't doubt that. I just think the same can be said for pretty much any top 25 medical school. You need both the stats as well as something else fairly exceptional to be accepted. Some schools might want exceptional research with publications. Others might want some crazy leadership endeavors. They key is matching to what the specific school wants, because they can afford to be that picky. My point is also that a story won't override non-exceptional stats. Mayo has a very high 10% percentile GPA, even compared to many other top schools.
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I actually disagree. Based on how I interpret "exceptional" I don't qualify and neither do friends of mine (with much lower stats than mine) that have been accepted to Duke, WashU, etc...
 
gettheleadout said:
I actually disagree. Based on how I interpret "exceptional" I don't qualify and neither do friends of mine (with much lower stats than mine) that have been accepted to Duke, WashU, etc...
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well "exceptional" is a relative term hehe.
 
As someone who interviewed and was accepted at Mayo last cycle, I can try to weigh in on the 'special ingredient' that this place looks for .. Mayo is tremendously, incredibly, over-the-top focused on this idea of patient-centeredness. The mantra there is, the needs of the patient come first, and if you visit Mayo, you will hear that from every student and faculty member that you meet. They seem to really value people who have gone out into their community or world and participated in unique, insightful experiences that will make them compassionate, humanistic physicians. It seems to me, based on my interactions with Mayo students and other interview candidates, that it's really about looking out for people who seem to share that similar interest in the patient experience.

It's also such a ridiculously selective admissions process (~300 interviews from 5000+ applicants, if I recall?) that a lot of it probably comes down to whether or not something in your file resonates with the AdCom reader who happens, by some chance, to look at it. If you end up getting an interview and/or acceptance here, congratulations, but it's a bit like poker .. often the margin between winning players and losing ones has as much to do with chance and inexplicable happenstance as genuine talent.
 
aspirantmed said:
As someone who interviewed and was accepted at Mayo last cycle, I can try to weigh in on the 'special ingredient' that this place looks for .. Mayo is tremendously, incredibly, over-the-top focused on this idea of patient-centeredness. The mantra there is, the needs of the patient come first, and if you visit Mayo, you will hear that from every student and faculty member that you meet. They seem to really value people who have gone out into their community or world and participated in unique, insightful experiences that will make them compassionate, humanistic physicians. It seems to me, based on my interactions with Mayo students and other interview candidates, that it's really about looking out for people who seem to share that similar interest in the patient experience.
Click to expand...

Mayo sounds like a great school, but from the way Mayo is discussed on SDN, it's almost like a mystical utopia of healthcare. But don't all, or at least most, medical schools have a "patient-centeredness" about them? Are there any concrete examples of what they do differently that their patient-focus is so over the top?
 
I do think that most medical schools have a sense of "patient-centeredness" that they look for, but I think Mayo tends to look at this more strongly .. they acknowledge on interview day that their average MCAT (33-34, I think?) is lower than that of peer institutions, and they attribute that to the fact that they look beyond grades and really emphasize the story, as previous posters have said.

Some ways that MMS brings out patient-centeredness in a way that other medical schools don't:
  • I can't speak to whether or not this is true, but when I interviewed, a few of the student hosts said that their MMS interviewer had been a former patient who participated in admissions.
  • When I visited Mayo, I went to a panel discussion with my host. It was a panel of patients (and parents of patients) providing advice to an audience of physicians and students as to how to better accommodate patients with a particular set of conditions. That's interesting; you don't often see patients brought front and center as educators, or as people who the healthcare system can learn from, or as involved partners in the health design process.
  • The resources that Mayo has for its patients are incredible. There's an entire library for patient medical education; that is, for patients to come and learn more about their medical condition. Also, Mayo invests a lot into involving patients in their care; patients can view their health records via smartphone and remain engaged in their own health decisions while at Mayo .. and if that doesn't seem like too big of a deal, it's miles ahead of 99% other health institutions. There is also a "Center for Innovation" that essentially functions like a startup within Mayo - a department that looks for ways to improve healthcare delivery and hack the patient experience.
  • In both of my Mayo interviews, we spent a lot of time discussing what it meant to be humanistic, or empathic, or how I conceptualized the idea of patient-centeredness .. it approached medicine on a very theoretical and ideological level, and I was positively impressed by the fact that this seemed to be something the clinicians and students apparently thought a lot about.
I know a lot of that is pretty arbitrary, and it doesn't really seem directly relevant to medical education. But based off my 3 days there, I think it's more just the look and feel of the place and the culture that pervades it.

--Edit: That I'm raving about this is somewhat more peculiar and ironic in the context that I'm not even attending next year .. great place, though.
 
aspirantmed said:
I do think that most medical schools have a sense of "patient-centeredness" that they look for, but I think Mayo tends to look at this more strongly .. they acknowledge on interview day that their average MCAT (33-34, I think?) is lower than that of peer institutions, and they attribute that to the fact that they look beyond grades and really emphasize the story, as previous posters have said.

Some ways that MMS brings out patient-centeredness in a way that other medical schools don't:
  • I can't speak to whether or not this is true, but when I interviewed, a few of the student hosts said that their MMS interviewer had been a former patient who participated in admissions.
  • When I visited Mayo, I went to a panel discussion with my host. It was a panel of patients (and parents of patients) providing advice to an audience of physicians and students as to how to better accommodate patients with a particular set of conditions. That's interesting; you don't often see patients brought front and center as educators, or as people who the healthcare system can learn from, or as involved partners in the health design process.
  • The resources that Mayo has for its patients are incredible. There's an entire library for patient medical education; that is, for patients to come and learn more about their medical condition. Also, Mayo invests a lot into involving patients in their care; patients can view their health records via smartphone and remain engaged in their own health decisions while at Mayo .. and if that doesn't seem like too big of a deal, it's miles ahead of 99% other health institutions. There is also a "Center for Innovation" that essentially functions like a startup within Mayo - a department that looks for ways to improve healthcare delivery and hack the patient experience.
  • In both of my Mayo interviews, we spent a lot of time discussing what it meant to be humanistic, or empathic, or how I conceptualized the idea of patient-centeredness .. it approached medicine on a very theoretical and ideological level, and I was positively impressed by the fact that this seemed to be something the clinicians and students apparently thought a lot about.
I know a lot of that is pretty arbitrary, and it doesn't really seem directly relevant to medical education. But based off my 3 days there, I think it's more just the look and feel of the place and the culture that pervades it.

--Edit: That I'm raving about this is somewhat more peculiar and ironic in the context that I'm not even attending next year .. great place, though.
Click to expand...
Thanks for your input. This is making me want to apply even more.
 
Hi all, I'm also looking forward to applying to Mayo this year! 🙂 I've heard the weather is pretty brutal in the winter. Anyone have experience with this?
 
Agree with aspirant MD. A lot of places say they are patient focused, or pay lip service to that idea, but don't do such a great job embodying that philosophy. Mayo does. People really live it here.

For example one of my coworkers was just diagnosed with breast cancer. Once they figured out the treatment protocol they plan for her, they got her hooked up with a "mentor". Some who has gone through that same treatment protocol to discuss experiences with. When you're going through something as terrifying as cancer, having a resource like that is really helpful.

For a more minor thing, I sprained my ankle shortly after I arrived and needed crutches. The nurses brought in the crutches and said they were going to teach me how to use them. I said I'd had them before after knee surgery and knew how to use them. One of the nurses eyed me and asked, "did anyone show you how yo use them at that time?" I said no, it seemed pretty straight forward and I hadn't had any issues. Well, turns out I wasn't quite doing it right and they spent 10-15 minutes showing me how to use them, how to navigate stairs with one crutch and both crutches, how to support my weight with one crutch. How not to put strain on certain areas when supporting yourself and a bunch of little tricks to make things easier. Then they gave me a whole booklet on crutches. It's just a million little things that make a big difference.

Mayo isn't perfect. There are still some d-bags around and you can receive crappy care, it just seems like fewer of them than elsewhere. It's just that for the most part people are willing to go way above and beyond to help patients more than what I've seen elsewhere. Thought gets put in to patient interactions with providers, the hospital and clinic environment, patient education, and all kinds of little things that make a big difference to patients.

If you get the chance to go there you'll probably pick up on it pretty quickly.
In the mean time check this out, a post from the sharing Mayo Clinic blog

http://sharing.mayoclinic.org/discussion/learning-perspective
 
wholeheartedly said:
Agree with aspirant MD. A lot of places say they are patient focused, or pay lip service to that idea, but don't do such a great job embodying that philosophy. Mayo does. People really live it here.

For example one of my coworkers was just diagnosed with breast cancer. Once they figured out the treatment protocol they plan for her, they got her hooked up with a "mentor". Some who has gone through that same treatment protocol to discuss experiences with. When you're going through something as terrifying as cancer, having a resource like that is really helpful.

For a more minor thing, I sprained my ankle shortly after I arrived and needed crutches. The nurses brought in the crutches and said they were going to teach me how to use them. I said I'd had them before after knee surgery and knew how to use them. One of the nurses eyed me and asked, "did anyone show you how yo use them at that time?" I said no, it seemed pretty straight forward and I hadn't had any issues. Well, turns out I wasn't quite doing it right and they spent 10-15 minutes showing me how to use them, how to navigate stairs with one crutch and both crutches, how to support my weight with one crutch. How not to put strain on certain areas when supporting yourself and a bunch of little tricks to make things easier. Then they gave me a whole booklet on crutches. It's just a million little things that make a big difference.

Mayo isn't perfect. There are still some d-bags around and you can receive crappy care, it just seems like fewer of them than elsewhere. It's just that for the most part people are willing to go way above and beyond to help patients more than what I've seen elsewhere. Thought gets put in to patient interactions with providers, the hospital and clinic environment, patient education, and all kinds of little things that make a big difference to patients.

If you get the chance to go there you'll probably pick up on it pretty quickly.
In the mean time check this out, a post from the sharing Mayo Clinic blog

http://sharing.mayoclinic.org/discussion/learning-perspective
Click to expand...

Wow, Mayo sounds amazing. I'm really glad I decided to switch out Dartmouth to apply to Mayo. Hope they show me some love!
 
Oh my gosh. Mayo sounds so amazing. I really don't know if I have an "exceptional story" (I'm not quite sure what that means, which I guess indicates that I don't have one), but Mayo sounds like EXACTLY the kind of institution I want to be at. I really agree with that philosophy and would love to be a Mayo trained physician. But again, my lack of anything exceptional may preclude me from consideration, which is a bummer. Oh well -- too early to be pessimistic. I'll keep my fingers crossed really hard for Mayo 😍
 
sunflower18 said:
Oh my gosh. Mayo sounds so amazing. I really don't know if I have an "exceptional story" (I'm not quite sure what that means, which I guess indicates that I don't have one), but Mayo sounds like EXACTLY the kind of institution I want to be at. I really agree with that philosophy and would love to be a Mayo trained physician. But again, my lack of anything exceptional may preclude me from consideration, which is a bummer. Oh well -- too early to be pessimistic. I'll keep my fingers crossed really hard for Mayo 😍
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Your exceptional thing might just be how your eyes light up when you talk about the philosophy you want to train in and the kind of provider you want to be. 😉
 
Is there any place that has aggregated, in some way, some of these exceptional stories around? Past cycle threads haven't seemed to delve too much into personal details like that. I'm not applying, but would love to read some of these stories.

sunflower18 said:
Oh my gosh. Mayo sounds so amazing. I really don't know if I have an "exceptional story" (I'm not quite sure what that means, which I guess indicates that I don't have one), but Mayo sounds like EXACTLY the kind of institution I want to be at. I really agree with that philosophy and would love to be a Mayo trained physician. But again, my lack of anything exceptional may preclude me from consideration, which is a bummer. Oh well -- too early to be pessimistic. I'll keep my fingers crossed really hard for Mayo 😍
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Your experience may or may not be exceptional, but your profile picture and tagline most certainly are.
 
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Calumniam said:
Is there any place that has aggregated, in some way, some of these exceptional stories around? Past cycle threads haven't seemed to delve too much into personal details like that. I'm not applying, but would love to read some of these stories.
.
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What kinds of stories are you looking for? Patient experiences, student experiences, others?
 
wholeheartedly said:
What kinds of stories are you looking for? Patient experiences, student experiences, others?
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Just the experiences (in whatever manifestation) that applicants have had that are exceptional. Just out of curiosity since I like hearing about people's diverse backgrounds and what they've done.
 
wholeheartedly said:
What kinds of stories are you looking for? Patient experiences, student experiences, others?
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I'm applying to Mayo, and my background is pretty interesting. But I'd like to add that I have a friend at Mayo who has lived a completely normal and nondescript life.

As far as unusual premed experiences of some of my friends:
-A guy who was an ambulance driver in a combat zone (applying).
-A guy who spent over 6500 hours - all four college years, plus summers - working on a single research project, publishing multiple times (accepted literally everywhere he applied).
-A guy who worked on multiple archaeological digs in Egypt before deciding to go to medical school (accepted).
 
zzxxzz said:
I'm applying to Mayo, and my background is pretty interesting. But I'd like to add that I have a friend at Mayo who has lived a completely normal and nondescript life.

As far as unusual premed experiences of some of my friends:
-A guy who was an ambulance driver in a combat zone (applying).
-A guy who spent over 6500 hours - all four college years, plus summers - working on a single research project, publishing multiple times (accepted literally everywhere he applied).
-A guy who worked on multiple archaeological digs in Egypt before deciding to go to medical school (accepted).
Click to expand...

My knowledge is obviously limited. However, based on my experiences, Mayo actively puts together a diverse student body that is comprised of individuals that have exceptional life-experiences, -goals, and/or attitudes. I haven't met everyone.

Keep in mind one's story is not just about their past experiences; it includes the present and future. How it is told is also important.

I don't see value in sharing my story, because I can't imagine that Mayo is looking for a particular story. My recommendation is to be sincere, put a lot of thought into what you are doing and writing, and if you are a good match, Mayo might offer you a spot.

I wish you all the best of luck. Stay positive and enthusiastic.
 
A previous student from my undergrad went here, and my premed advisor said that the student said "Mayo just does things different" (in a good way)
 
Don't be afraid of the winter. Rochester and the surrounding area are a wonderful place to live year-round. Yes, it gets cold, but you get used to it. Rochester is a nice, modern city with easy access to all the amenities of larger cities but without some of the negatives (traffic, criminal activity, etc.). And obviously, Mayo is Mayo.

I can't wait to apply here 😍
 
Mayo seems wonderful, applying with about a 3.8 s/c and a 37. They're the only school that points out a pharm D is acceptable for admission on their website so prehaps they like people like myself 😛.
 
Seems like a great school and atmosphere to learn medicine in, but their small class size makes me question my chances at getting in even if I do have the stats for them
 
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