2014 Nontrad Applicants' Progress Thread

Showcase Professionalism with the PREview® Exam
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Yaaaaaaaaaayyyy Amygdarya!
 
QuantumJ said:
Right there with you pescado. Doesn't matter that I kno this only day 1 of possible acceptances. Still hurts a bit.
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I know 🙁 especially when I know some of these schools prematch heavily...going over in my head if I really screwed up the interview or if I did anything wrong...
 
Amygdarya said:
Thank you acceptmeplease! You guys almost made me blush 🙂

milski, the very first post-secondary communication I got from any medical school was a rejection - boy, did I freak out! I thought there was something fatally wrong with my application. But I shouldn't have worried because - guess what? - I just got accepted to UTSW! I'm gonna be a doctor!!! :soexcited:(And so will you 😉)
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Congrats!!!!!!!! The first of surely many!!!!! 🙂
 
PescadoAmor said:
I know 🙁 especially when I know some of these schools prematch heavily...going over in my head if I really screwed up the interview or if I did anything wrong...
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Yeah exactly. Especially Tx A&M that prematches heavily and takes 70% of interviewed.

Huge congratulations to amy. She's one of the nicest people on here.

Accepted to TCOM minutes ago.
 
QuantumJ said:
Yeah exactly. Especially Tx A&M that prematches heavily and takes 70% of interviewed.

Huge congratulations to amy. She's one of the nicest people on here.

Accepted to TCOM minutes ago.
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hey! congrats quantumj you know you'll be a doctor! hoping we'll hear good news from the MD schools in the near future...
 
QuantumJ said:
Yeah exactly. Especially Tx A&M that prematches heavily and takes 70% of interviewed.

Huge congratulations to amy. She's one of the nicest people on here.

Accepted to TCOM minutes ago.
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if it makes you feel any better about a&m, the admissions at temple told us on interview day they are really conservative with prematches this year
 
PescadoAmor said:
if it makes you feel any better about a&m, the admissions at temple told us on interview day they are really conservative with prematches this year
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Thank you and yes it does actually. I was under the impression A&M did heavy prematching. Really though I waited months after applying while watching others get interviews while I had nothing but my time came eventually. I am excited though that it's finally time we can start hearing back.
 
Amygdarya said:
Thank you acceptmeplease! You guys almost made me blush 🙂

milski, the very first post-secondary communication I got from any medical school was a rejection - boy, did I freak out! I thought there was something fatally wrong with my application. But I shouldn't have worried because - guess what? - I just got accepted to UTSW! I'm gonna be a doctor!!! :soexcited:(And so will you 😉)
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That is absolutely awesome! Congratulations and happy celebrations!!! 😀 :highfive:
 
Amygdarya said:
Thank you acceptmeplease! You guys almost made me blush 🙂

milski, the very first post-secondary communication I got from any medical school was a rejection - boy, did I freak out! I thought there was something fatally wrong with my application. But I shouldn't have worried because - guess what? - I just got accepted to UTSW! I'm gonna be a doctor!!! :soexcited:(And so will you 😉)
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WOO-HOO! Finally an acceptance for Amy! I was tired of waiting, LOL. I am sure, you have more to come! Congratulations!!!!
 
Captain Sisko said:
Any interviews yet? Either way it's still relatively early. Probably not quite half done at a lot of schools.
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I've been on six interviews, two waitlists, waiting for the others. I'm not really too worried right now, just being impatient. There are three or four schools that I'm hoping will invite me, so I'll probably send them an update next month.
 
MedWonk said:
I've been on six interviews, two waitlists, waiting for the others. I'm not really too worried right now, just being impatient. There are three or four schools that I'm hoping will invite me, so I'll probably send them an update next month.
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Yeah you're fine. It's a long, antsy process.
 
My cycle has officially come to end today!
I was fortunate to receive pre-match offers from all 5 of the Texas schools I've interviewed at, including my top choice! It feels surreal :soexcited:

Current cycle tally: 21 schools applied to / 1 rejection / 13 II / 11 interviews attended / 1 waitlist / 10 acceptances (6 MD/4DO)
 
TwinsFan said:
My cycle has officially come to end today!
I was fortunate to receive pre-match offers from all 5 of the Texas schools I've interviewed at, including my top choice! It feels surreal :soexcited:

Current cycle tally: 21 schools applied to / 1 rejection / 13 II / 11 interviews attended / 1 waitlist / 10 acceptances (6 MD/4DO)
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Absolutely fantastic. :claps:
 
Late to the game because I was at an interview yesterday but CONGRATULATIONS, Amygdarya!!! Well and completely deserved.
 
Accidental double post. Is it just me or is this happening to a lot of people lately?
 
Awww... reading this thread just gave me another rush of excitement 🙂 Thank you for your support guys, it does mean a lot to me!

Looks like it was a really nice day for fellow TX residents - QuantumJ, TwinsFan, PescadoAmor, Dr Mom (sorry if I missed anyone), major congrats to y'all! Double congrats to those for whom the cycle is over.
 
Last interview (so far) next week! My last interview went reaaaally well, but it was at a ridiculously competitive school so I'm not letting myself get too hopeful. I wish I had done so well on my first interview!
It's crazy how much you learn during the interviews. Still cringing at my first experience 🙂
 
Pose said:
II to UMass today! Will be my first MMI...
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Congrats and good luck! It seems like I'm going to complete my cycle without a single MMI, but they sound like fun.
 
Captain Sisko said:
Fun like a root canal
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Yeah, I'm with Cpt. Sisko on this. I have had a few MMIs, and I don't particularly like them. Your time is too short in each room to ever get into a substantial conversation. And I find that I really miss that. Not only do I think that the MMIs don't allow me to shine my brightest, but I also think the school misses out on the chance for its interviewer to share a lot with me about what makes the place special. At my non-MMI schools, I have really enjoyed a lot of the conversations that I had with my faculty or student interviewers and felt like it was such an important part of my learning about the culture of the school. You have their full attention for that half hour to an hour, unlike just grabbing some shared time with a student over lunch.
 
GreenMed said:
Yeah, I'm with Cpt. Sisko on this. I have had a few MMIs, and I don't particularly like them. Your time is too short in each room to ever get into a substantial conversation. And I find that I really miss that. Not only do I think that the MMIs don't allow me to shine my brightest, but I also think the school misses out on the chance for its interviewer to share a lot with me about what makes the place special. At my non-MMI schools, I have really enjoyed a lot of the conversations that I had with my faculty or student interviewers and felt like it was such an important part of my learning about the culture of the school. You have their full attention for that half hour to an hour, unlike just grabbing some shared time with a student over lunch.
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Can't like this enough. Well put. Maybe if a schools goal is to churn out doctors as fast as possible you need an assembly line process like Cincinnati, but I want to feel a fit at a school. You can't tell from an mmi interview day.
 
I liked the MMI I did. Much less time talking about myself. There were a few stations that were more awkward, but they were over quickly.

I don't think any one interview will tell you if you are or are not a fit at the school...that come more from the sum of interactions throughout the day, plus revisits after acceptances. I didn't feel I was missing anything on that level from the MMI.
 
SN12357 said:
I liked the MMI I did. Much less time talking about myself. There were a few stations that were more awkward, but they were over quickly.

I don't think any one interview will tell you if you are or are not a fit at the school...that come more from the sum of interactions throughout the day, plus revisits after acceptances. I didn't feel I was missing anything on that level from the MMI.
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I think my impression of MMIs is a minority impression... mostly people do in fact seem to like them. So, Pose - and others who have an MMI lined up - should definitely go into them with a positive outlook and the thought that they will be fun! (I try to do the same.)

But if you turn out NOT to like them, don't feel like you're utterly alone in that. 🙂
 
I loved my MMI! It felt good to talk about difficult issues and bring in things I've learned from other fields - and I liked that it wasn't about me because the rest of my application does a good job of describing who I am, especially since I have a sort of funky story. The MMI felt like a chance to show off my critical thinking and problem solving.

On a side note, I wonder if liking MMIs correlates with high verbal reasoning MCAT scores? At Stanford they told us that MMI and VR scores predict how well you do in the clinical years of med school, while PS and BS predict the first two years. My VR was way higher than my other scores...
 
DR MOM said:
I loved my MMI! It felt good to talk about difficult issues and bring in things I've learned from other fields - and I liked that it wasn't about me because the rest of my application does a good job of describing who I am, especially since I have a sort of funky story. The MMI felt like a chance to show off my critical thinking and problem solving.

On a side note, I wonder if liking MMIs correlates with high verbal reasoning MCAT scores? At Stanford they told us that MMI and VR scores predict how well you do in the clinical years of med school, while PS and BS predict the first two years. My VR was way higher than my other scores...
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Could be. I scored a ten and hated mine. But a lot of people seem to do poorly on verbal yet still enjoy mmi. Idk. Interesting thought though.
 
DR MOM said:
I wonder if liking MMIs correlates with high verbal reasoning MCAT scores?
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I'm going to say... there are plenty of reasons to like or dislike the MMI, and it doesn't seem related to verbal fluency or reasoning to me. But, just one data point. (VR = 13)
 
GreenMed said:
I'm going to say... there are plenty of reasons to like or dislike the MMI, and it doesn't seem related to verbal fluency or reasoning to me. But, just one data point. (VR = 13)
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It could be that we're just narcissistic and enjoy talking about ourselves. Self awareness ftw
 
NuttyEngDude said:
People (including me) with previous traditional interviewing experience tend to dislike mmi.
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I think it's more likely to be that people with faith in traditional interviews dislike MMI.

I have plenty of experience on both sides of the interview table and simply have no faith that a traditional interview does anything much more than weed out a particular subset of socially inept people. When I interview I do skills tests now. It's amazing how candidates will seem great and then fall apart when asked to do a simple copyediting task (I don't stress test this--give it to them in a very friendly fashion, then leave the room so it's not like I'm hovering).

It's worth noting that in a traditional interview in a work setting you have basically no way of confirming whether or not your interview is effectively picking out the best candidates. You only see the performance of the one you chose, so you have no way of knowing if someone else would have been better, and admitting you were wrong is painful. The amount of denial I have seen from managers who made an abysmal hire is incredible. They don't want to admit that they screwed up so badly in picking a candidate.

MMI challenges the basic assumption that human beings can reliably assess a person's aptitude and suitability through a conversation. I'm reasonably sure that MMI isn't any worse than traditional interviews, might be better, and is pretty much a neutral from my perspective as an applicant. If an in-person performance is required for admission, it doesn't matter what type of dance they ask for.

Anyway, to go back to the main topic, Pose, I'm sure you'll do great at the UMass MMI! The people I know at UMass love the school.
 
Too much depends to judge the efficacy of the MMI itself (does the interview solely decide to accept the candidate?). But a bad MMI implementation (and there is wide variance from the other threads posted) is just as bad as a bad traditional interview, in the end it's the people running the show that really count, in both cases.

From what I've seen the MMI is an attempt to create a process to make up for the shortcomings of bad interviewers. But in the process it hamstrings a good interviewer, who presumably has experience with introverts as well as extroverts and knows not all that shines is gold.

MMI is great for schools with bad interviewers and tries to "spread the risk," but on the other hand, it is terrible for schools with an already great set of interviewers in place. Granted, it is difficult time consuming and resource intensive to build a good set of interviewers.


But right now, we are all debating preference because we dont know how it fits together in the end and are just expressing our reactions to our small set of app/interview experiences. I agree we should move the MMI debate to another thread like this one:
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/how-to-prep-for-mmi-interview.1041399/
 
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I like MMI and probably would prefer all my interviews to be MMI, but it seems like my best interview so far (by my own feeling) was a traditional interview. Anyway, I'll get back on topic. Out of six interviews, I have 3WL and 3 decisions pending. I hate being waitlisted, but I think I've resigned myself to just expect a waitlist from every school I've interviewed at.
 
Hey, those next 3 decisions don't have to be waitlists 🙂 I know it's discouraging to be waitlisted at 3 schools, but there is no reason the waitlist streak shouldn't end.
 
Picked up my eighth pre-interview rejection today. I suspect Brown is only the leading edge of an avalanche of schools i haven't heard from since July. As much as getting a rejection stings, I'm neither complaining nor disappointed in my season thus far.
 
I expect an avalanche of rejections in January, although I will probably withdraw from a bunch of schools as soon as I get my hands on the official paper acceptance letter from UTSW - "you cannot reject me, I reject you!" 😉
P.S. - Not complaining about my cycle either.
 
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Yes, getting back to the purpose of this thread... I posted once way, way back, and I've mostly just lurked here since then. I wish everyone the strength and patience to get through this ponderous process. I think my interview season is mostly wrapping up (one left), and I have some acceptances to great schools. Right now I am just wondering how I can avoid getting attached to one of these early acceptances when really I have to wait all the way 'til March before I can make any decisions. A great problem to have, I know.
 
Amygdarya said:
I expect an avalanche of rejections in January, although I will probably withdraw from a bunch of schools as soon as I get my hands on the official paper acceptance letter from UTSW - "you cannot reject me, I reject you!" 😉
P.S. - Not complaining about my cycle either.
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Sent out four withdrawal emails this morning 🙂
 
Ohh, I should start withdrawing from schools also.

Thanks for all of the input on MMI. I think I'm heading into the interview pretty relaxed since I've had a pretty successful season already. And I'm excited for UMass, since I've heard such good things (and it offers me IS tuition).
 
After my Mayo acceptance I withdrew from schools that I had interviewed at but knew I wouldn't choose over Mayo. It was so tempting to wait long enough to find out if they wanted me, but I didn't let that temptation get to me.

Waiting to hear from other schools that are still in the running is intense though! (I'm still waiting on UCSF, Stanford, Harvard, and Yale) I almost wish I could fast-forward to March, but there are a lot of important dates in between. Luckily Kid and Wife birthdays, Thanksgivingkkah, Xmas, New Years, etc gives me something to distract myself with.
 
DR MOM said:
After my Mayo acceptance I withdrew from schools that I had interviewed at but knew I wouldn't choose over Mayo. It was so tempting to wait long enough to find out if they wanted me, but I didn't let that temptation get to me.

Waiting to hear from other schools that are still in the running is intense though! (I'm still waiting on UCSF, Stanford, Harvard, and Yale) I almost wish I could fast-forward to March, but there are a lot of important dates in between. Luckily Kid and Wife birthdays, Thanksgivingkkah, Xmas, New Years, etc gives me something to distract myself with.
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Yes, I also withdrew from three schools, letting go of that temptation to know whether they would have accepted me or not. It's definitely kinder to fellow applicants to just let go.

I'm trying to distract myself until March, but it's hard. I wish I had things that I really wanted to do before medical school... but really, I just wish I could start school.
 
I don't think I like the TX prematch and match system. I know that a lot of people don't get in until the match on Feb 1 but it's hard not to look at the school threads and see all the people who have early acceptences to my top choices and knowing I have to wait until Feb 1. First world problems for sure but I waited to apply for a yer, waiting after appling to get interviews and now this. I'm just ready to be in school and have my own destiny in my own hands if I work hard instead of this seemingly random bs application process.
 
I agree with what Dr Mom and GreenMed said; withdrawing from schools you're not going to attend is certainly more considerate to the schools and to other applicants. And it sure is a long wait till March...
 
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