2015-2016 Columbia University College of P&S Application Thread

Discover Your Odds of Getting into Medical School
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Thego2guy said:
Lol... I shouldn't have clicked on that link.

Not to succumb to the neuroticism..... but what do you guys think if the letter contains both similar elements from the survey in the link? Both the "we will keep your app strongly in mind" and the "you seem like a good fit and we'd love to have you" all in one letter? Besides, Dean Nicholas is not Dean Frantz, maybe his team runs things differently. I can't believe I am getting suckered into over-analyzing this; but, thoughts?!
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Don't give in! I was specifically warned by students to make nothing of this reply when I was interviewing.
 
timeflies said:
Has anyone interviewed for Bassett yet?
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I interviewed at Bassett a couple weeks ago. I think they have had a couple interview days so far, and the last interview day for them is sometime in January. They told us on our interview day that there are 5 interview days in total. Good luck!
 
statesboroblues said:
I interviewed at Bassett a couple weeks ago. I think they have had a couple interview days so far, and the last interview day for them is sometime in January. They told us on our interview day that there are 5 interview days in total. Good luck!
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When did you get the II? And do you mind posting your stats?
 
statesboroblues said:
No problem. I got an invitation in mid-September and LizzyM=71 (had to do some digging to figure out the meaning of that statistic, haha).
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Cool, thanks. The Bassett program is far and away my top choice, so I'm just trying to see if I even have a remote chance of getting an II. (Probably not.) What kind of students do you think they're looking for? In your secondary application, did you have a really good response for what draws you to Bassett?
 
Cotterpin said:
Cool, thanks. The Bassett program is far and away my top choice, so I'm just trying to see if I even have a remote chance of getting an II. (Probably not.) What kind of students do you think they're looking for? In your secondary application, did you have a really good response for what draws you to Bassett?
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I will PM you!!
 
WedgeDawg said:
If you go back and look through previous years' threads, you'll see that the "personalization" is really a bunch of stock phrases that are mixed and matched for each applicant. If you interviewed with Dean Nicholas himself, there might be something about your conversation in there, but otherwise it's "generically personalized". Everyone who sends a thank you note gets one in return as far as I was able to tell.

Everyone and their mother will get waitlisted (Columbia seems to like doing that).
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I sent a thank you email to my specific faculty interviewer and uploaded a PDF version to the portal as requested. Did other people also send a general one to Dean Nicholas and the admissions committee?
 
BabyTeuvoFan said:
I sent a thank you email to my specific faculty interviewer and uploaded a PDF version to the portal as requested. Did other people also send a general one to Dean Nicholas and the admissions committee?
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I only sent an email to my interviewer/uploaded to portal. Didn't send anything to Dean Nicholas or anyone (though it was Dean Nicholas who responded with the personalized/generic letter to my thank you).
 
BabyTeuvoFan said:
I sent a thank you email to my specific faculty interviewer and uploaded a PDF version to the portal as requested. Did other people also send a general one to Dean Nicholas and the admissions committee?
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Nope. That is definite overkill. Besides, your interviewer probably wont respond. You will get a general thank you note back from Dean Nicholas. Dont read too much into it.
 
Thego2guy said:
Nope. That is definite overkill. Besides, your interviewer probably wont respond. You will get a general thank you note back from Dean Nicholas. Dont read too much into it.
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my interviewer gave me his email, which I assumed meant I should probably email him a thank you. He responded the day of with a generic response. Also uploaded a thank you to the portal, dean nicholas responded with the generic thank you for your thank you a week or so later.

I think writing thank you notes are just the professional thing to do, doubt it's required or helps your chances.
 
Montisumo said:
For PhD applicants to the 3 year program, admissions will start giving IIs in January. Idk why so late, but that is what they do in this year. GL
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That's when they start giving Ph.D interviews, so I suspect some Ph.D adcom members may be involved in this process.
 
sunshine93 said:
So I have been complete since early August, but have not heard back... does this mean I have been rejected?
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I am also wondering about this... I have been complete since the very end of august and heard nothing. Does anyone know if historically Columbia has ever given out late invites to applicants who have been complete for awhile, or should I assume this is a silent reject?

Thanks!
 
CI45454554 said:
I am also wondering about this... I have been complete since the very end of august and heard nothing. Does anyone know if historically Columbia has ever given out late invites to applicants who have been complete for awhile, or should I assume this is a silent reject?

Thanks!
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According to last year's thread people complete in July were still getting II's into early January. Don't think we can assume anything yet. It ain't over 'til it's over
 
Lisha said:
Hey, just tryna keep on top of all the SDN lingo. What's an "ita"? Thanks!
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I believe it means " in the area". If you're already scheduled to interview at a school nearby, you can let another school know that you will be "in the area" at that time. Hopefully they will extend you a II for around the same time, that's the logic behind it. If I'm wrong,someone please correct me.
 
This seems like so much fun. I can't wait to go through this process
 
Cotterpin said:
Lol, you're being sarcastic, right? It's not fun. It's very stressful. The waiting is excruciating!
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It wasn't sarcasm lol. I remember the most fun I had was waiting to see which colleges I was accepted to for undergrad. At the end of the process, when you see the fruits of your labor, it's very satisfying.

Is that weird?
 
AlphaBeta<3 said:
It wasn't sarcasm lol. I remember the most fun I had was waiting to see which colleges I was accepted to for undergrad. At the end of the process, when you see the fruits of your labor, it's very satisfying.

Is that weird?
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It is..if you're having a great cycle lol. Otherwise it's more confusion and befuddlement. And this is all new for me too since I applied ED for college.
 
AlphaBeta<3 said:
It wasn't sarcasm lol. I remember the most fun I had was waiting to see which colleges I was accepted to for undergrad. At the end of the process, when you see the fruits of your labor, it's very satisfying.

Is that weird?
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It's less fun for med school because you spend thousands of dollars and you might not end up getting into any schools at all, but you have sit around for months and months waiting to find out if all that work was for nothing, and you have to be simultaneously coming up with a plan for how you're going to improve and do better again next year if you fail . . . it's not pleasant. Unless you're a rockstar with like 20 II's. But even then, that might be too expensive to deal with.
 
Cotterpin said:
It's less fun for med school because you spend thousands of dollars and you might not end up getting into any schools at all, but you have sit around for months and months waiting to find out if all that work was for nothing, and you have to be simultaneously coming up with a plan for how you're going to improve and do better again next year if you fail . . . it's not pleasant. Unless you're a rockstar with like 20 II's. But even then, that might be too expensive to deal with.
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Wait, thousands? How does anyone afford that?

One thing though, I know everybody always wants to go to top med schools, but does it make any difference? I know for college it matters if you're planning on getting a job directly afterwards, it will positively affect your pay. But if you go to an OK med school, won't you be making the same as someone who went to Harvard?
 
AlphaBeta<3 said:
Wait, thousands? How does anyone afford that?

One thing though, I know everybody always wants to go to top med schools, but does it make any difference? I know for college it matters if you're planning on getting a job directly afterwards, it will positively affect your pay. But if you go to an OK med school, won't you be making the same as someone who went to Harvard?
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If you are lucky, you can get fee assistance from the AAMC to help pay for your apps. But that's probably harder to get than it should be. There's no help for paying to go to your interviews. That's just expensive.

I have been told by multiple attending physicians that it doesn't matter which med school you go to. You should go to the one that will cost the least amount of money for you. What you end up doing in your medical career has much, much more to do with where you do your residency. Where you went to med school will have no direct affect on how much you earn. So there's really no need to go to HMS unless you really want to do research there or something.
 
Well I might be mistaken, but looking at the match lists from tier 1 colleges, it seems that a large percentage matches to the top medical centers in the country as well. So wouldn't that raise your chances? Obviously anyone from any med school has a chance to match to the top if they do well in med school but wouldn't you want to just maximize your odds in the first place?
 
but even if they match to the top hospitals, don't doctors still generally get paid the same?
 
NotAnotherPreMed said:
Well I might be mistaken, but looking at the match lists from tier 1 colleges, it seems that a large percentage matches to the top medical centers in the country as well. So wouldn't that raise your chances? Obviously anyone from any med school has a chance to match to the top if they do well in med school but wouldn't you want to just maximize your odds in the first place?
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I don't know. From what the actual doctors I know in real life have said (i.e. not SDN neurotics), your medical school isn't super important. They're all really good schools. If @AlphaBeta<3 is mostly concerned with making money, then I have no idea because that isn't really on my radar.
 
AlphaBeta<3 said:
but even if they match to the top hospitals, don't doctors still generally get paid the same?
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It's not about pay. Actually, in academics you get paid substantially less (generally). A lot of students from top med schools want to go into academics, so getting into a "top tier" or at least university-based residency becomes more important, and the easiest way to do that is to go to a medical school that feeds to these types of residencies.
 
What you get paid is mostly dependent on your specialty and where you're practicing, not where you went to med school, right?
 
not sure about future earnings (that depends on your specialty) but in terms of research strength/opportunities and clinical experience, the school matters
 
Cotterpin said:
What you get paid is mostly dependent on your specialty and where you're practicing, not where you went to med school, right?
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Specialty, type of practice, location, yeah. These factors can all be influenced by where you went to med school, but you're not locked in or out of anywhere by your med school.
 
so basically everyone I know is stressing to get into these top med schools for no reason, since it doesn't make any difference.
 
AlphaBeta<3 said:
so basically everyone I know is stressing to get into these top med schools for no reason, since it doesn't make any difference.
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That's not at all what anyone has said. It does not have a direct impact on your salary, but it will have some sort of effect on where you will likely match in particular specialties and whether you will have an easier time getting into certain specialties, programs within specialties, programs in specific locations, LOR connections, research capabilities within medical schools, connections within smaller specialties especially, strength of your classmates, and focus of your curriculum.

This is also not a conversation that should be continued in this thread. If anyone wishes to continue discussing this, please make a new thread in the main pre-allo forum.
 
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