2014-2015 The Commonwealth Medical College Application Thread

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Make Or Break said:
I thought the next committee meeting was sometime in early December? That's when people started getting accepted from last years thread
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*nods* This Friday is 6 weeks. Early December would be past the 8 week mark they gave, but it is when last year's came out
 
anyone have any travel and lodging recommendation or tips for coming from out of state?
 
hoihaie said:
anyone have any travel and lodging recommendation or tips for coming from out of state?
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The Radisson was nice and had an airport shuttle which is great because there aren't any cabs in the area
 
Interviewed 10/3 and waiting anxiously...has anyone submitted follow-up letters or calls since their interview? Does anyone know which is better?
 
Hey guys.

I just checked the MSAR info and only 27 out of 326 OOS interviewees matriculated...

How many do ya'll think actually got accepted out of those 326? 50%?

Anybody have an idea from previous years? Perhaps since people use this new school as a backup the amount accepted might be more than 50%? IDK. And therefore, lots of people withdrew their acceptances and only 27 matriculated.
 
Anybody know if we can pull our interview date up sooner? I'm scheduled for mid-February but I would like to go in sooner
 
Galapagos Wombat said:
Anybody know if we can pull our interview date up sooner? I'm scheduled for mid-February but I would like to go in sooner
Click to expand...
+1

Looking at last year's thread, there were still some early December dates for those who got II's around now... I guess it really does vary year from year, though.

Does the admissions committee still review applications once a month?
 
Does TCMC accept any sort of pre-II updates and/or letters of recommendation?
 
does every member of admissions committee get our complete application or do they simply listen to what person who interviewed us has to say and vote based on that? I'm very interested in how the mechanics of these meetings operate. Of course, each school is different.
 
Tabs69 said:
does every member of admissions committee get our complete application or do they simply listen to what person who interviewed us has to say and vote based on that? I'm very interested in how the mechanics of these meetings operate. Of course, each school is different.
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The person who interviews you isn't necessarily an adcom member thus I'd assume every member of the adcom gets a complete application that includes a write-up from each of your interviewers.
 
anyone with some interview advice? what kinds of question to prep for, etc.?
 
Deferred. Interviewed 2nd week of October. Oh well 😀
 
Just got the email I was deferred until the next committee meeting. At least it isn't a rejection but still....
 
I was really hoping they were gonna get to 11/8 interviews sooner than six weeks....
 
2nd year here with insight on all of this.

Student interviews are all conducted by MD2s. Faculty interviewers are either community physicians affiliated with the school or basic science PhDs. Faculty interviewers have personal statement and secondary application. Student interviewers are only given secondary application. Neither have grades, stats, background info or anything else besides your name. Both are asked to submit a comprehensive evaluation of our interviews with a score from 1-7. Students are encouraged to submit evals within 48 hours. Thank you letters are appreciated by faculty and students alike (just a heads up for any school - you should most definitely do that after you interview and also ASAP).

Adcom meets about twice a month. The adcom is composed of roughly 12 members, 10 are necessary to have an active meeting where acceptances are determined. There are 2 or 3 non-voting members who sit on the committee from admissions. The committee rotates members each year so this year is different from the previous year. Committee members are again physicians who have strong ties to the school and basic science faculty members. Deans are not on the committee.

The adcom receives a full applicant folder complete with AMCAS, Secondary, Interview Evals, and any updates sent to admissions. The MCAT (at least what will become the old MCAT in a few months) is separated into total score and verbal score. The GPA is obviously cumulative GPA and BCMP GPA. Each member reads folders for those up for evaluation and scores the candidate on a scale of 1-7. Averages for each candidate are established among the adcom members along with the score given by interviewers (both student and faculty). Cutoffs are established in the meeting. For example (these may not be the actual cutoffs): 5 and above would be granted acceptances, 4's would be deferred, 3 and below would be rejected outright. These are established at each adcom meeting. These cutoffs have been trending upwards as we are no longer a "backup school". The averages for our first year class meet those of many allopathic med schools. Decision dates historically have been: late october, late november/early december, early february, late march and late april.

Deferred applicants have been admitted at follow-up adcom meetings (just ask the first years). Late season deferrals are typically waitlisted.

From a student's perspective: many secondaries read the same.

I gloss over a lot when I see community based care or primary care or underserved community medicine. I also find grammatical or spelling errors to be really distracting. Answer the question in a secondary. I can't stand when applicants just take the box to talk more about some random experience they've had. If we ask for 5 traits doctors should have - have a mix of expected traits (compassion, good communication) and surprising traits (dynamism, humor).

A LOT of people mention the Family Centered Experience...yeah it's cool and stuff and it can be a great experience but other schools do it too whether people realize it or not. LIC sets us apart from other schools so when you can talk to me about that - you've gotten my interest.

People also forget the first two years of the curriculum. We do an entirely flipped classroom model for the second year. Almost no one ever brings that up. I care that you know something about our school and even more that you know something about our community.

If you've done your homework on NEPA and/or Scranton - esp if you're out of state - I'm going to have a lot of respect for you. Students aren't trying to bounce you out of this process - so don't treat us with less respect. We're an interviewer and ultimately a part of that tabulated score, so take it seriously.

The faster I get off track with my stock questions - the better the interview is going. The interviews are short - so if you spend 20 minutes talking about a very specific experience, it's less time for me to gather info about other important things like teamwork, knowledge about TCMC, why you want to come here, etc.

We want interesting, kind and compassionate people. We want people we want to go to class with. We want people who get the vibe we have going on here. It's a very different vibe and one that we're very proud of.

We have received well over 6000 applications this year and are planning to interview about 800. Last year about a month out from the decision date - we had 200 people still accepted. TCMC is steadily becoming more competitive so do your homework, try and have a good interview, and really talk to us about how you fit. If you spew stuff off the website - I'm going to tune you out as will many of the faculty.

I hope this was helpful. I don't mean to stress any of you out - but I want to stress the importance of how we do this and that every interaction you have with the school matters. I take about an hour or two every two weeks to read secondaries and come up with questions for my interviews. My classmates and I are proud to do this for our school and so are the physicians and faculty. It's a very holistic and thorough process and a lot goes into it. It's not perfect but then again I wouldn't say any admissions process is.

Good luck and of course I'm happy to answer any questions you have about TCMC or the community.
 
plasmamorris said:
2nd year here with insight on all of this.

Student interviews are all conducted by MD2s. Faculty interviewers are either community physicians affiliated with the school or basic science PhDs. Faculty interviewers have personal statement and secondary application. Student interviewers are only given secondary application. Neither have grades, stats, background info or anything else besides your name. Both are asked to submit a comprehensive evaluation of our interviews with a score from 1-7. Students are encouraged to submit evals within 48 hours. Thank you letters are appreciated by faculty and students alike (just a heads up for any school - you should most definitely do that after you interview and also ASAP).

Adcom meets about twice a month. The adcom is composed of roughly 12 members, 10 are necessary to have an active meeting where acceptances are determined. There are 2 or 3 non-voting members who sit on the committee from admissions. The committee rotates members each year so this year is different from the previous year. Committee members are again physicians who have strong ties to the school and basic science faculty members. Deans are not on the committee.

The adcom receives a full applicant folder complete with AMCAS, Secondary, Interview Evals, and any updates sent to admissions. The MCAT (at least what will become the old MCAT in a few months) is separated into total score and verbal score. The GPA is obviously cumulative GPA and BCMP GPA. Each member reads folders for those up for evaluation and scores the candidate on a scale of 1-7. Averages for each candidate are established among the adcom members along with the score given by interviewers (both student and faculty). Cutoffs are established in the meeting. For example (these may not be the actual cutoffs): 5 and above would be granted acceptances, 4's would be deferred, 3 and below would be rejected outright. These are established at each adcom meeting. These cutoffs have been trending upwards as we are no longer a "backup school". The averages for our first year class meet those of many allopathic med schools. Decision dates historically have been: late october, late november/early december, early february, late march and late april.

Deferred applicants have been admitted at follow-up adcom meetings (just ask the first years). Late season deferrals are typically waitlisted.

From a student's perspective: many secondaries read the same.

I gloss over a lot when I see community based care or primary care or underserved community medicine. I also find grammatical or spelling errors to be really distracting. Answer the question in a secondary. I can't stand when applicants just take the box to talk more about some random experience they've had. If we ask for 5 traits doctors should have - have a mix of expected traits (compassion, good communication) and surprising traits (dynamism, humor).

A LOT of people mention the Family Centered Experience...yeah it's cool and stuff and it can be a great experience but other schools do it too whether people realize it or not. LIC sets us apart from other schools so when you can talk to me about that - you've gotten my interest.

People also forget the first two years of the curriculum. We do an entirely flipped classroom model for the second year. Almost no one ever brings that up. I care that you know something about our school and even more that you know something about our community.

If you've done your homework on NEPA and/or Scranton - esp if you're out of state - I'm going to have a lot of respect for you. Students aren't trying to bounce you out of this process - so don't treat us with less respect. We're an interviewer and ultimately a part of that tabulated score, so take it seriously.

The faster I get off track with my stock questions - the better the interview is going. The interviews are short - so if you spend 20 minutes talking about a very specific experience, it's less time for me to gather info about other important things like teamwork, knowledge about TCMC, why you want to come here, etc.

We want interesting, kind and compassionate people. We want people we want to go to class with. We want people who get the vibe we have going on here. It's a very different vibe and one that we're very proud of.

We have received well over 6000 applications this year and are planning to interview about 800. Last year about a month out from the decision date - we had 200 people still accepted. TCMC is steadily becoming more competitive so do your homework, try and have a good interview, and really talk to us about how you fit. If you spew stuff off the website - I'm going to tune you out as will many of the faculty.

I hope this was helpful. I don't mean to stress any of you out - but I want to stress the importance of how we do this and that every interaction you have with the school matters. I take about an hour or two every two weeks to read secondaries and come up with questions for my interviews. My classmates and I are proud to do this for our school and so are the physicians and faculty. It's a very holistic and thorough process and a lot goes into it. It's not perfect but then again I wouldn't say any admissions process is.

Good luck and of course I'm happy to answer any questions you have about TCMC or the community.
Click to expand...

This is extremely helpful. Thanks for this! I got deferred this morning. Do you think it's worth sending a letter of interest? I had my interview 1st week of October and sent a letter right after expressing my continued interest. Would it hurt to send another/ update?
 
peanutsnjuice said:
This is extremely helpful. Thanks for this! I got deferred this morning. Do you think it's worth sending a letter of interest? I had my interview 1st week of October and sent a letter right after expressing my continued interest. Would it hurt to send another/ update?
Click to expand...
+1 just got deferred and really liked this school. Want to show committee I'm still enthusiastic
 
plasmamorris said:
2nd year here with insight on all of this.

Student interviews are all conducted by MD2s. Faculty interviewers are either community physicians affiliated with the school or basic science PhDs. Faculty interviewers have personal statement and secondary application. Student interviewers are only given secondary application. Neither have grades, stats, background info or anything else besides your name. Both are asked to submit a comprehensive evaluation of our interviews with a score from 1-7. Students are encouraged to submit evals within 48 hours. Thank you letters are appreciated by faculty and students alike (just a heads up for any school - you should most definitely do that after you interview and also ASAP).

Adcom meets about twice a month. The adcom is composed of roughly 12 members, 10 are necessary to have an active meeting where acceptances are determined. There are 2 or 3 non-voting members who sit on the committee from admissions. The committee rotates members each year so this year is different from the previous year. Committee members are again physicians who have strong ties to the school and basic science faculty members. Deans are not on the committee.

The adcom receives a full applicant folder complete with AMCAS, Secondary, Interview Evals, and any updates sent to admissions. The MCAT (at least what will become the old MCAT in a few months) is separated into total score and verbal score. The GPA is obviously cumulative GPA and BCMP GPA. Each member reads folders for those up for evaluation and scores the candidate on a scale of 1-7. Averages for each candidate are established among the adcom members along with the score given by interviewers (both student and faculty). Cutoffs are established in the meeting. For example (these may not be the actual cutoffs): 5 and above would be granted acceptances, 4's would be deferred, 3 and below would be rejected outright. These are established at each adcom meeting. These cutoffs have been trending upwards as we are no longer a "backup school". The averages for our first year class meet those of many allopathic med schools. Decision dates historically have been: late october, late november/early december, early february, late march and late april.

Deferred applicants have been admitted at follow-up adcom meetings (just ask the first years). Late season deferrals are typically waitlisted.

From a student's perspective: many secondaries read the same.

I gloss over a lot when I see community based care or primary care or underserved community medicine. I also find grammatical or spelling errors to be really distracting. Answer the question in a secondary. I can't stand when applicants just take the box to talk more about some random experience they've had. If we ask for 5 traits doctors should have - have a mix of expected traits (compassion, good communication) and surprising traits (dynamism, humor).

A LOT of people mention the Family Centered Experience...yeah it's cool and stuff and it can be a great experience but other schools do it too whether people realize it or not. LIC sets us apart from other schools so when you can talk to me about that - you've gotten my interest.

People also forget the first two years of the curriculum. We do an entirely flipped classroom model for the second year. Almost no one ever brings that up. I care that you know something about our school and even more that you know something about our community.

If you've done your homework on NEPA and/or Scranton - esp if you're out of state - I'm going to have a lot of respect for you. Students aren't trying to bounce you out of this process - so don't treat us with less respect. We're an interviewer and ultimately a part of that tabulated score, so take it seriously.

The faster I get off track with my stock questions - the better the interview is going. The interviews are short - so if you spend 20 minutes talking about a very specific experience, it's less time for me to gather info about other important things like teamwork, knowledge about TCMC, why you want to come here, etc.

We want interesting, kind and compassionate people. We want people we want to go to class with. We want people who get the vibe we have going on here. It's a very different vibe and one that we're very proud of.

We have received well over 6000 applications this year and are planning to interview about 800. Last year about a month out from the decision date - we had 200 people still accepted. TCMC is steadily becoming more competitive so do your homework, try and have a good interview, and really talk to us about how you fit. If you spew stuff off the website - I'm going to tune you out as will many of the faculty.

I hope this was helpful. I don't mean to stress any of you out - but I want to stress the importance of how we do this and that every interaction you have with the school matters. I take about an hour or two every two weeks to read secondaries and come up with questions for my interviews. My classmates and I are proud to do this for our school and so are the physicians and faculty. It's a very holistic and thorough process and a lot goes into it. It's not perfect but then again I wouldn't say any admissions process is.

Good luck and of course I'm happy to answer any questions you have about TCMC or the community.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your insight. It's reassuring to hear your perspective on this whole process. For deferred applicants, what changes between the date of a deferral and the next committee meeting that may change the status of their admission? Are there considerations that the committee makes between meetings that can help/hurt a deferred applicant? Do you know if there are ways that we, as applicants, can help push us into "acceptance" status? Thanks again.
 
Deferrals can be a tough place to be. The truth is that the class they are recruiting is shifting and changing in character with each person they admit. They are looking to the overall character of the class and seeing how individuals fit into that picture. So you're not necessarily "changing" anything between the committee meetings.

This is to say - being deferred did not mean your grades or mcat or something was not good enough. They did not get a strong enough idea about your fit for TCMC and want to re-evaluate within the larger context of more applicants.

Updates - send them if you've got them. Worst case - it goes in the trash. Best case - it goes in your file and changes your score.

Big hint - do not be *too* enthusiastic. Flooding admissions phones every week or sending us updates every week will only hurt your app. If you've got an important update - send it. Otherwise, be patient.
 
@plasmamorris, I've heard that students are able to rank their choices for their campus assignment, is this true? Being assigned to the west campus is pretty important to me so I just want to know what I need to do to make sure it happens. Thanks!
 
F***.

Just took another look at my supplemental after 2 months, turns out my response to the first question was cut off. Does anyone know how poorly that reflects on my app.? I don't think I can call till Monday.

Also, I keep trying to send my LOI to their email. MSAR lists their email as admissions@tcmedc.org which didn't work, and when I called I was told its [email protected], which didn't work neither. What gives?
 
I sent in my updates to [email protected] and it worked, got a response from them regarding it. But I also got my II from [email protected] though, so I guess both works?

DenTony11235 said:
F***.
Click to expand...
DenTony11235 said:
Just took another look at my supplemental after 2 months, turns out my response to the first question was cut off. Does anyone know how poorly that reflects on my app.? I don't think I can call till Monday.

Also, I keep trying to send my LOI to their email. MSAR lists their email as admissions@tcmedc.org which didn't work, and when I called I was told its [email protected], which didn't work neither. What gives?
Click to expand...
 
they were right, a sweet t-shirt really is the way to my heart haha. absolutely adored my interview day here, a truly positive experience and total surprise. this school is a hidden gem and I could see myself being really happy here. going to be a long two month wait haha
 
DoctorLacrosse said:
they were right, a sweet t-shirt really is the way to my heart haha. absolutely adored my interview day here, a truly positive experience and total surprise. this school is a hidden gem and I could see myself being really happy here. going to be a long two month wait haha
Click to expand...
I know right??? Such a great school. Hoping for some news for the deferred!
 
llamasarefuzzy said:
My mom postulated that the committee didn't feel like meeting this month so they just deferred everyone
Click to expand...

haha funny. perhaps they didn't have enough applicants to review, or wanted a larger sample to compare against before giving out acceptances? an unusually large number of people deferred lol
 
plasmamorris said:
2nd year here with insight on all of this.

Student interviews are all conducted by MD2s. Faculty interviewers are either community physicians affiliated with the school or basic science PhDs. Faculty interviewers have personal statement and secondary application. Student interviewers are only given secondary application. Neither have grades, stats, background info or anything else besides your name. Both are asked to submit a comprehensive evaluation of our interviews with a score from 1-7. Students are encouraged to submit evals within 48 hours. Thank you letters are appreciated by faculty and students alike (just a heads up for any school - you should most definitely do that after you interview and also ASAP).

Adcom meets about twice a month. The adcom is composed of roughly 12 members, 10 are necessary to have an active meeting where acceptances are determined. There are 2 or 3 non-voting members who sit on the committee from admissions. The committee rotates members each year so this year is different from the previous year. Committee members are again physicians who have strong ties to the school and basic science faculty members. Deans are not on the committee.

The adcom receives a full applicant folder complete with AMCAS, Secondary, Interview Evals, and any updates sent to admissions. The MCAT (at least what will become the old MCAT in a few months) is separated into total score and verbal score. The GPA is obviously cumulative GPA and BCMP GPA. Each member reads folders for those up for evaluation and scores the candidate on a scale of 1-7. Averages for each candidate are established among the adcom members along with the score given by interviewers (both student and faculty). Cutoffs are established in the meeting. For example (these may not be the actual cutoffs): 5 and above would be granted acceptances, 4's would be deferred, 3 and below would be rejected outright. These are established at each adcom meeting. These cutoffs have been trending upwards as we are no longer a "backup school". The averages for our first year class meet those of many allopathic med schools. Decision dates historically have been: late october, late november/early december, early february, late march and late april.

Deferred applicants have been admitted at follow-up adcom meetings (just ask the first years). Late season deferrals are typically waitlisted.

From a student's perspective: many secondaries read the same.

I gloss over a lot when I see community based care or primary care or underserved community medicine. I also find grammatical or spelling errors to be really distracting. Answer the question in a secondary. I can't stand when applicants just take the box to talk more about some random experience they've had. If we ask for 5 traits doctors should have - have a mix of expected traits (compassion, good communication) and surprising traits (dynamism, humor).

A LOT of people mention the Family Centered Experience...yeah it's cool and stuff and it can be a great experience but other schools do it too whether people realize it or not. LIC sets us apart from other schools so when you can talk to me about that - you've gotten my interest.

People also forget the first two years of the curriculum. We do an entirely flipped classroom model for the second year. Almost no one ever brings that up. I care that you know something about our school and even more that you know something about our community.

If you've done your homework on NEPA and/or Scranton - esp if you're out of state - I'm going to have a lot of respect for you. Students aren't trying to bounce you out of this process - so don't treat us with less respect. We're an interviewer and ultimately a part of that tabulated score, so take it seriously.

The faster I get off track with my stock questions - the better the interview is going. The interviews are short - so if you spend 20 minutes talking about a very specific experience, it's less time for me to gather info about other important things like teamwork, knowledge about TCMC, why you want to come here, etc.

We want interesting, kind and compassionate people. We want people we want to go to class with. We want people who get the vibe we have going on here. It's a very different vibe and one that we're very proud of.

We have received well over 6000 applications this year and are planning to interview about 800. Last year about a month out from the decision date - we had 200 people still accepted. TCMC is steadily becoming more competitive so do your homework, try and have a good interview, and really talk to us about how you fit. If you spew stuff off the website - I'm going to tune you out as will many of the faculty.

I hope this was helpful. I don't mean to stress any of you out - but I want to stress the importance of how we do this and that every interaction you have with the school matters. I take about an hour or two every two weeks to read secondaries and come up with questions for my interviews. My classmates and I are proud to do this for our school and so are the physicians and faculty. It's a very holistic and thorough process and a lot goes into it. It's not perfect but then again I wouldn't say any admissions process is.

Good luck and of course I'm happy to answer any questions you have about TCMC or the community.
Click to expand...
What's the purpose behind separating the composite and verbal MCAT scores? That's an interesting method of reviewing scores.
 
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