2015 Nontrad Applicants' Progress Thread

Started by milski
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Overanxious said:
Background check form is ridiculous. Doesn't work with firefox or chrome. Managed to get it working with safari on a mac. They need ALL addresses and provide only 7 slots...they can't advise on what to do from there on other than to call each school. 🙄
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All addresses from birth? I'm sure they'd like to know where I lived in Uganda, except addresses don't work the same way there.
"On xyz hill, the house near xyz club, on the road from abc to blah".
 
ridethecliche said:
All addresses from birth? I'm sure they'd like to know where I lived in Uganda, except addresses don't work the same way there.
"On xyz hill, the house near xyz club, on the road from abc to blah".
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Unfortunately. :boom:I left out my foreign address, wasn't there long enough that i felt it mattered. I need 2 more slots and Certiphi can't add anymore. :arghh: The prospect of calling each school and asking what they want me to do (such a ridiculous question) is unappealing. I'd like to think the most recent 7 would suffice...unfortunately that doesn't include my address where i spent the majority of my life. Contemplating dropping the briefest address to add the more important one.
 
ConsultantMD said:
From quick profile stalking, it appears that georgeag did an amazing job at being efficient in applying to the right number of schools and racking up 6 acceptances. Like I said before, you should give your Northwestern II up for someone else!
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ConsultantMD is right. 6 acceptances, with a couple of full-tuition rides, including my favorite program so far (Case's College Track). In all humility, I am not sure if NW will give enough fin aid to override what's on my table now. I will decline the NW II. Thanks!
 
I have a feeling that the application machinery will start moving again on monday. Exciting to see what will happen for us non-trads in the 2nd half!

georgeag said:
ConsultantMD is right. 6 acceptances, with a couple of full-tuition rides, including my favorite program so far (Case's College Track). In all humility, I am not sure if NW will give enough fin aid to override what's on my table now. I will decline the NW II. Thanks!
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I'd still go to Northwestern if you can swing the money for the interview. Given that you have a full ride already, your loan stuff isn't going to be a huge issue. While northwestern probably won't give you the money that case will, that program looks incredibly unique and you should go and give it a chance if you're even remotely interested in it.

If you're not, then decline the II.

Of all the schools I applied to, their curriculum and setup stood out the most to me in a good way. You have a lot of great options, but your future isn't totally covered in debt and you can breathe easy a bit.
 
Just wanted to give my information to others. I applied to three MD schools with ,so far, 1 II, 1 acceptance and the other two are in post-secondary mode waiting for an II. I have been pre-screened on those two. TN resident with a LizzyM of 64 (MCAT 26-29). I had a 2.8 after sophomore year but I didn't take a single science class so I had a killer sGPA with last 50 credits being 3.96. I also had a lot of unique ECs. I just want to say that being in the military REALLY REALLY helps this process and future military guys need to recognize that adcoms love the leadership, teamwork and commitment roles that the military is able to give. Make sure to get your clinical and volunteer hours and you are pretty much golden.
 
ProMed13 said:
I just want to say that being in the military REALLY REALLY helps this process and future military guys need to recognize that adcoms love the leadership, teamwork and commitment roles that the military is able to give. Make sure to get your clinical and volunteer hours and you are pretty much golden.
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I couldn't agree more with you on this point, @ProMed13. It helps to connect your military experience - medical or non-medical- with your passion for medicine. It helped me too! Ride on Promed13!
 
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Can someone help me understand what my options might be for financial aid? My EFC for the 2014-2015 school year is $401. I have to take a class this spring that is about $1500. Is there any grant I'm eligible for? This would be a post-bacc class.
 
Leslie_Knope said:
Can someone help me understand what my options might be for financial aid? My EFC for the 2014-2015 school year is $401. I have to take a class this spring that is about $1500. Is there any grant I'm eligible for? This would be a post-bacc class.
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I was only able to receive a BOG waiver but I took my classes at a JC
 
Leslie_Knope said:
Can someone help me understand what my options might be for financial aid? My EFC for the 2014-2015 school year is $401. I have to take a class this spring that is about $1500. Is there any grant I'm eligible for? This would be a post-bacc class.
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You could try for a STEM award at your school as long as the class is appropriate.
 
Most schools have financial aid specialists who can help with such issues. I visited with one a while back, when my son decided to move back in ewith me full time, and he was extremely helpful.
 
Hey non-trads. If anyone is starting to think of Plan B for this cycle, I know that CDC is hiring temporary full time employees to support the Ebola response. I'm helping staff up the infection prevention and control programs, so PM me if you want more information.

I'm uploading an announcement that we put out for your information.
I can't personally hire anyone, but I can offer more information about our work if you are interested.
 

Attachments

Hey all, I'm a former nontrad-applicant (went into medicine after finishing a separate, mostly-unrelated basic science PhD), and just wanted to pop in and give you guys a word of encouragement. A little over four years ago I was in your shoes, busting my ass to relearn college science, applying to schools while working on the side, and anxiously waiting for an acceptance somewhere-anywhere.

Now I'm a fourth-year medical student a few days away from finding out my results in the SFMatch for Ophthalmology. It's been a long tough road in many respects, but in others, it's been a real joy and time has flown by faster than I could have imagined. The goal feels like it's within sight now, and looking back, I'm so glad I stuck to it and made the leap into medicine.

So: hang in there! Be proactive, work for what you want, and keep your eyes on the prize. If/when things work out, it'll be 150% worth it.
 
Question for people sitting in the silence:
I am reading some posts and it seems like emails can get lost in cyber space. I actually had two secondaries get lost and when I wrote to the schools they "re-send" them to me.
I also had portals updated without getting an email.
That being said.

Is it too early to start emailing schools for an update? I do not want to appear impatient and there's the factor that people who were completed in August are interviewing with people completed in November.
So I am thinking on writing to the schools. I am just not sure if now is the time.

Any thoughts? Anyone else on this boat?
 
Yesterday I got the background check email. It's weird because they don't tell you which school initiated the request. I was super excited thinking it was a new acceptance, but after scouring all my portals, I am concluding it must be related to a school I have already heard from. Oh well. 🙄

Compiling all my addresses from the past 10 years was made less tedious by copious wine-drinking.

Glad to see all the good news here!
 
threesparrows said:
Yesterday I got the background check email. It's weird because they don't tell you which school initiated the request. I was super excited thinking it was a new acceptance, but after scouring all my portals, I am concluding it must be related to a school I have already heard from. Oh well. 🙄

Compiling all my addresses from the past 10 years was made less tedious by copious wine-drinking.

Glad to see all the good news here!
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Ten years? Via Certiphi? What if I can't remember? I don't keep records like I suppose I should.
 
Leslie_Knope said:
Ten years? Via Certiphi? What if I can't remember? I don't keep records like I suppose I should.
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Not from a med-school related check but:
You do the best you can. They want the addresses, since some of the possible events they are interested are only available from some of the local courts where you lived at the time. If they don't have the address, they can either everything that they have, which is more time consuming and potentially more expensive. Alternatively, they can dig your addresses from that period. Again, that takes time and/or money. Since they charge a fixed price, you can expect that the extra cost is amortized over all applicants and at worst, you may have to wait a bit longer for your background check to be complete.
td;dr: don't worry, fill in as much info as you remember and carry on. 😉
 
Leslie_Knope said:
Ten years? Via Certiphi? What if I can't remember? I don't keep records like I suppose I should.
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Yes, the Certiphi background screening.
It actually asks for every address you've ever lived at, but there are only seven spaces. Whew!

I thought I wouldn't be able to find them all but old resumes are a gold mine for this info!
 
I also used my amazon account and searched my gmail for old addresses. I guess this is a good reminder to start keeping what we have now. I imagine they'll need a lot of this for licensing down the road.
 
Oh, I got my Certiphi results back recently. It looked like they did county, state, and federal searches. This is in no way official advice, but it looked like there wasn't much value in putting multiple addresses in the same city, or even the same address for different time periods (family).
 
Wait listed at Minnesota, not really that disappointed as the only way I would have attended was if the were wanting to help pay for it. Still no word from Penn State, but remaining hopeful. My son informed me that he is now rooting for Arizona or Penn State Over OHSU....guess we'll see.

Glad to hear that most folks have at least one place to land next year. Rooting for the rest of you!
 
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Don't know if I posted this here, but I got a call on monday asking if I could move my Einstein interview up to the 16th (yesterday). I figured out my schedule and went.

The school is amazing. I loved everything about it. Interview went way better than I could have expected though I really do need to stop talking about patients not doing well during these interview or talking about taking gigantic tumors to pathology....then again these are doctors so...

The interviewer was a bit weird and had one headphone in the entire interview and he kept staring at a screen that I couldn't see from time to time. That said, he was (surprisingly) completely attentive and it didn't seem to interfere with anything. The interview ended a little abruptly since he had to lecture but it lasted for about 45 minutes. He said "Look I like you. I'm not on the adcomm but I write them a letter regarding this interview. I'm going to tell them that they're making a mistake if they don't let you in." I was honestly pretty shocked.

Einstein's my top choice and now I have to hurry up and wait for 8 weeks. ARGHHHH!!!
 
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