2016-2017 Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Application Thread

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TulipF said:
Hard isn't so much the issue. If we are trying to become doctors, we have essentially signed up for a lifetime of "hard." I don't mind the amount of work that has to go into the application process (the pre-reqs, the studying for the MCAT, the absurd amount of essay writing ~ Did you know by this point I could have written a novel? The average mystery novel is around 60,000 words in length. I have written roughly 70,000. More, if you count all the drafts and scrap.). What I do mind is the exclusionary and discourteous aspects of applying. I've talked about discourtesy before, so I will stick to exclusionary. Every medical school out there claims they want "diversity" and yet make the mere process of applying so costly, immediately narrowing their applicant pool to at least middle class or above applicants. I am lucky that I have enough financial support that I can shell out roughly $900 in a single day for primary applications and $1800 in the space of a month for secondary applications without any concern. Not everyone can, nor should they have to. Even with AMCAS Fee waivers, the cost is still inordinate for applicants who are just starting out and are on their own. I am not saying it is impossible to pay these application fees (people do save up), but it just makes the process just that much more and unnecessarily harder.

On top of that, what is with schools that send secondary applications to applicants that they either know they won't accept or so late in the cycle, the likelihood of acceptance is so incredibly slim? I understand some schools are trying genuinely to get a holistic picture of their applicants and therefore a secondary application really can make the difference, but for schools that are more GPA or MCAT oriented, who won't even consider a candidate that doesn't have acceptable (to them) statistics, they should be upfront and fair to applicants by filtering applications and sending secondaries only to whom they genuinely are interested in. Alongside sending secondaries to applicants on the last week that schools have interview slots open, this is just a sleazy and unethical money grab on the part of the medical schools.

The problems tick on. I remember, once, years ago, having the opportunity to sit down and discuss medical school applications with a friend of my mother's, who happened to be a former member of an admissions committee in one of the medical schools in the southern part of the U.S. (I wasn't interested in applying to the school). I remember him telling me that admissions committees are well aware that some medical school applicants use essay writing and letter writing services to write their primary and secondary applications, and that they (the ad coms) consequently took what they were reading lightly, treating the essays as a lesser piece of the whole application process. I was appalled. For starters, it has never even occurred to me (Yes, I know I am a naive child) that someone would go as far as to get someone else to write their essays. It is like using steroids or performance enhancing drugs when doing sports ~ cheating. It greatly disadvantages those who are competing on their own merit and skill. I am a good writer, but I can't compete with someone who has been writing professionally for 30 years. Secondly, I was pissed ~ if ad coms know this is happening, why haven't they done anything to prevent this? It could be just this one case of a jaded committee member, but even so, there are measures that they can taken if ad coms really do suspect this. Some graduate and undergraduate programs run the essays they receive through plagiarism and writing style checkers. However, this school just chose to do nothing, turning all the applicants hard work into a fool's errand and the application process itself less meaningful.

Oh God, I'm back to ranting again. Someone, anyone - please confiscate my keyboard until such time that I can be relied on to internet responsibly. :troll:

Wait. One last thing, and I swear I'll stop ranting about this. It was not always this way. The application process was significantly different 20 years ago. I've asked around and confirmed this. This means that there is a different way of selecting people who you think will do well or be a credit to your institution. I am not so much for going back in time, but I do wish someone would ask the medical schools to introspect a little.
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medang5 said:
Called Admissions this morning. Newest update is that we may hear back "hopefully by next week." The waiting game continues... Stay strong guys! Hopefully just a few more days of waiting! But it didn't sound like today is the day...
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What really blows my mind is that, in the professional workplace, giving someone a deadline that you'll complete something by and blatantly failing at doing so (without prior notice or request for an extension) is a HUGE no-no. It's probably one of the least professional and worst looks that you can give off. People frequently get in trouble for this and in some jobs, you can be fired on the first offense because doing so has big ramifications for clients. Even if you're at a lenient organization, if this happens repeatedly then you can get in a great deal of trouble with your company.

While I'm not saying that we are in by any means "clients", and I understand and fully recognize that it is a privilege to become a physician let alone at Sinai, the fact that they can throw out arbitrary response times like "mid-february, late february at the LATEST" and be off not by days but now WEEKS is amazing. From a professional level it is disappointing. What's even more disappointing is that there are no ramifications for the decision-makers here, and they'll be able to keep doing things cycle after cycle. Who keeps them in check? Their jobs/careers aren't affected by this as each year's class will be more than willing to put up with BS for a chance to be a student at this fine institution.

One thing I like about Apple (the company) is their mantra of "under-promise and over-deliver". By over-promising and under-delivering, as the admissions office here has done, any organization is sure to leave a sour taste in many peoples' minds. Perhaps they can take a lesson from some of their peers and give a worst case scenario or deadline like "March 15" and deliver responses earlier if they are complete by then.

On a final note, I feel it is important to separate the medical school from the admissions office. There are a number of other incredible institutions with admissions offices that do not reflect well upon them as well (e.g. UCLA). But the admissions office is usually a separate entity, and I hope that even if you all are having a rough and/or unpleasant time dealing with admissions right now it does not color your perspective of this great school.

I wish you all a pleasant Monday. The sun is shining and life is good. If you have interviewed here I am sure that you will become a fine physician, regardless of your institution of training, and I cannot wait to be colleagues with you all. If there is something to be learned from this, I promise that when we work together one day in the hospital, I will try my best to under-promise and over-deliver 😀

Cheers,
Slippy
 
dragoon said:
Edit: Also called, told same thing about next week. I also asked about still sending an update letter. Not sure if they'll read it in time, but worth a try I guess.
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At the end of our interview day they mentioned that update letters should not be sent until a decision had been reached on our application (like a deferral/waitlist decision). Not sure if this is what they said on all interview days but our wrap-up person was pretty adamant about not sending any additional information. Also, this wait is getting ridiculous, it'll be an almost three week delay from the point that they said "at least by" and a month after their earlier window.

They really should have sent us all an update e-mail about the expected delay in decisions, like most other medical school admissions offices have done in the past. That would have been fine, instead of just perpetual waiting and seeing if someone on SDN called to check again.
 
To sum Mount Sinai decision timeline (to the best of my understanding):

1) Acceptances for 2016 and 2017 interviews have been released (>100 so far)
2) No one has been wait-listed yet
3) Decisions will come out "soon" for those who were deferred and for those who still haven't heard anything yet
 
ivantheterrible said:
To sum Mount Sinai decision timeline (to the best of my understanding):

1) Acceptances for 2016 and 2017 interviews have been released (>100 so far)
2) No one has been wait-listed yet
3) Decisions will come out "soon" for those who were deferred and for those who still haven't heard anything yet
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I'm not disputing you, ivantheterrible, but, I am curious ~ Where you are getting your information?
 
ready2go2 said:
Probably based on this thread if you read through it, anyone would come up with all those conclusions.
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Sure. A possibility ~ I just tend to take what I read on the SDN threads with a pinch of salt as SDN only captures a relatively small pool of MD applicants who post. I guess I was just hoping ivantheterrible had a heretofore unheard information from the admissions office at Icahn. 🙂
 
Are deferred people typically accepted or rejected?

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Wait what do you guys mean by deferred? I got the "While we are not yet prepared to offer you an acceptance at this time, your application is still being considered by our committee" email a while ago. Does that mean I was deferred? What is being deferred exactly? I thought I was waitlisted this whole time. I haven't sent my LOI yet so should I do that right now?
 
monopoly0101 said:
Wait what do you guys mean by deferred? I got the "While we are not yet prepared to offer you an acceptance at this time, your application is still being considered by our committee" email a while ago. Does that mean I was deferred? What is being deferred exactly? I thought I was waitlisted this whole time. I haven't sent my LOI yet so should I do that right now?
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Yeah that's what I got
I guess it could be a waitlist too
Idk when to send it

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monopoly0101 said:
Wait what do you guys mean by deferred? I got the "While we are not yet prepared to offer you an acceptance at this time, your application is still being considered by our committee" email a while ago. Does that mean I was deferred? What is being deferred exactly? I thought I was waitlisted this whole time. I haven't sent my LOI yet so should I do that right now?
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That's what people are talking about when they say deferred, yes
 
Just got waitlisted. Interviewed in January. Never got the so-called "deferral email." Probably will not stay on the list; good luck to those who are still waiting to hear back!

Also, had a good time reading your earlier ranting post, @TulipF: could not agree with you more, especially the points about being this whole process being an extremely ridiculous financial burden, just for us to sit in a big black box for 18 months.
 
Has anyone who was continued in November heard anything else from Sinai? Are we on the alternate list or something?
 
milkyway92 said:
Has anyone who was continued in November heard anything else from Sinai? Are we on the alternate list or something?
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I was deferred in December and just got the alternate list email.

At least this makes my decision pretty easy. Good luck to everyone else! 🙂
 
Waitlisted. Interviewed October and I was deferred in November.
 
Waitlisted
Interviewed in December
Deferred in January

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Also joining the wait list party

Any knowledge on how much, if any movement from this waitlist from previous years? I'm boutta scroll thru them, but if someone has answers, it'd save me the time. Thanks!
 
Interview Nov
Deferred Dec
Alternate Listed today.

Woot!
 
illdil33 said:
Also joining the wait list party

Any knowledge on how much, if any movement from this waitlist from previous years? I'm boutta scroll thru them, but if someone has answers, it'd save me the time. Thanks!
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Looking at last year's, there wasn't much movement

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Also waitlisted after interviewing in the end of September and being deferred in November! So many waitlists, thankful that I have an acceptance. Most likely going to withdraw.
 
Placed on alt list after being deferred in Nov. Withdrew myself. Good luck to everyone else!
 
Alternate list as well :cat:
 
Same. Did they just waitlist everyone they initially deferred or did some people get in?
 
Damn what does this mean for those of us left? Either accepted or rejected? eeeek

Loll Sinai is on such a puzzling schedule this year: accepted some last Thursday, rejected some on Monday, and waitlisted people today

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linsanity17 said:
Damn what does this mean for those of us left? Either accepted or rejected? eeeek

Loll Sinai is on such a puzzling schedule this year: accepted some last Thursday, rejected some on Monday, and waitlisted people today

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When did they reject kids on Monday?
 
Interviewed Late-Jan, Alternate list today, disappointed but will probably stick around for as long as possible. Hopefully we'll all see some nice movement in May. Good luck to everyone still hanging on!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Deferred in November, waitlisted today. Will probably not be pursuing it. Congrats to everyone who's been accepted and good luck to those remaining on the waitlist!
 
Weaver.be said:
Please tell me they are going to get back to us today.


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Probably not, because this is just the way my luck runs. *sigh* Oh well. I am not holding out a lot of hope for Icahn right now. The trend of wait lists/rejections on the thread are making me suspect something of the same ilk in my future.

Crystal ball, anyone?
 
Officially Alt Listed yesterday...deferred in November originally
 
Hmm so I haven't heard anything from Sinai. Is there anyone out there that still hasn't heard a decision from Sinai post-interview?


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Has anyone been rejected from Sinai after being deferred? I am wondering if they just waitlist everyone who isn't accepted?
 
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