*2016-2017 Washington State University Application Thread

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Pashinator said:
Sorry to hear that, you seem like a great candidate. When did you receive notification and when was your interview date?
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Thanks for the kind words! I interviewed Feb 3rd and received a rejection email just yesterday.
 
Godawgs17 said:
Thanks for the kind words! I interviewed Feb 3rd and received a rejection email just yesterday.
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Of course, keep kicking strong mate, you've got great stats and good ambitions. You'll undoubtedly be a great doctor one day.
 
tluedeke said:
That rejection is completely mind-boggling to me. With a 3.8/35, you'll get in somewhere, that's a strong combo.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't they throw out numbers after your II?
 
Whyamionhere said:
It seems like everyone is extra angsty this year. I blame it on the fact that we've only had 3 mild sunny days in Seattle since October (seriously don't read that KOMO article about this unless you want to feel extra sad about life).
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I don't care how cherry-picked that data was, it sure as heck gave me validation for thinking this was just a terrible winter
 
tluedeke said:
That rejection is completely mind-boggling to me. With a 3.8/35, you'll get in somewhere, that's a strong combo.
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Thanks! I did ask for an application review. Hopefully they can give me some specifics as to why I was not a good fit.
 
With the rejections of what appears to be very solid candidates, I'm wondering how many of us are actually still on this limbo/alternate/waiting list?
 
psychedskier said:
With the rejections of what appears to be very solid candidates, I'm wondering how many of us are actually still on this limbo/alternate/waiting list?
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I think we got to remember that we only got a piece of the picture with gpa/mcat. I think there's a very high emphasis on the interview and how well candidates relate to their mission. I think we can't look at other applicants with the same metrics we use to qualify them for other MD schools
 
Godawgs17 said:
Thanks! I did ask for an application review. Hopefully they can give me some specifics as to why I was not a good fit.
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I think in application review they won't tell you specifically why (at least that's what they told me in my request).
psychedskier said:
You shouldread the UW thread right now....SDN folks in Washington are just having a rough time in general I think right now, I wonder if this is actually a trend that happens every year (someone else can do that research).
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I had UWSOM yank my secondary offer when they found out that I'd lived in Nebraska for 12 1/2 months (after being in WA, and they refused to take into consider that I'd grown up in WA, lived most of my life in WA, and my motivation for career change was to pursue rural primary care in WA (then probably accepted candidates from AK). I could have as have been from Outer Mongolia, as far as they were concerned.

I don't understand that place at all...
 
Not a current applicant, but looking to apply this coming cycle.
How important is showing you have a dedication to rural medicine in getting accepted here?
 
On a scale of 1-10 I would say a 9.95

In all seriousness though, I would say it's important, but not the only thing. Serving underprivileged/indigent patients fits with the mission statement as well. Read the statement, and know that it's one of the more important aspects of applying there


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile
 
GregOdensKnee said:
Not a current applicant, but looking to apply this coming cycle.
How important is showing you have a dedication to rural medicine in getting accepted here?
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I think leadership experience is very important to your application as well. The school is looking for students who will be innovators and challenge the status quo of delivery of healthcare.
 
Just curious, What MCAT score can trigger the concern of not able to pass step1&2 in the future?
 
GregOdensKnee said:
Not a current applicant, but looking to apply this coming cycle.
How important is showing you have a dedication to rural medicine in getting accepted here?
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Mission statement from WSU: "... converging on solutions to the health care triple aim of improving the patient experience of care, keeping populations healthy, and decreasing the cost of care, all while improving the work life of health care providers."

Vision statement: "Inspiring people to solve problems in challenging healthcare environments."

I don't see rural medicine mentioned. Sure, it is in their goals, "including rural areas and vulnerable populations." However, it is not in the capstone/key takeaway mission statement. Populated cities have vulnerable populations... Additionally, when I interviewed, only 3 of the 24 applicants were from eastern Washington. If their emphasis is on rural primary care, then why recruit/select applicants from the densely populated west side, acknowledging that people are more inclined to practice in an environment similar to where they are from?

mavric1298 said:
On a scale of 1-10 I would say a 9.95

In all seriousness though, I would say it's important, but not the only thing. Serving underprivileged/indigent patients fits with the mission statement as well. Read the statement, and know that it's one of the more important aspects of applying there


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile
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I'm not inclined to 100% agree with this. When asked about my career goals, I mentioned emergency medicine, primary care or pursuing a specialty, emphasizing my desire to explore all areas of medicine and make an informed decision. I think it's important to be 100% genuine during the primary/secondary/interview, rather than gaming the system and saying what you think they want to hear. Case in point: I acknowledged that, compared to other applicants, I don't have as much clinical experience. I also discussed my failure to gain acceptance at UWSOM last year, and weighed the pros and cons of the "risk" associated with becoming a re-applicant to the ESFCOM in 2017. I also made it clear I am not a Washington native, but argued why WA is so important to me. From a traditional standpoint, all of these points are very taboo.

rbc1298 said:
I think leadership experience is very important to your application as well. The school is looking for students who will be innovators and challenge the status quo of delivery of healthcare.
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+1 on this. Collaboration/group success was heavily emphasized (across tech/pharmacy/nursing/medicine), which requires some level of leadership.

Bottom line, the ESFCOM is a brand new school and is challenging many of the traditional paradigms towards medicine. Be authentic in your application, and apply if the school's mission/intent fit with your goals.
 
Agree, it isn't the whole story. Most of the interviewees I was with on 1/6 were from urban Western WA. I mostly lived in Eastern WA, had wanted to go into medicine for rural primary care on the East Side, made it abundantly clear during the interviews, and I was neither accepted nor waitlisted. Godawags17 up above says he had thousands of hours in rural healthcare, a 35 MCAT, and a 3.8 GPA, and he wasn't accepted either.

To be perfectly honest, I really don't understand what ESFCOM is looking for. I thought I did, but I don't.
 
194 said:
I'm not inclined to 100% agree with this. When asked about my career goals, I mentioned emergency medicine, primary care or pursuing a specialty, emphasizing my desire to explore all areas of medicine and make an informed decision. I think it's important to be 100% genuine during the primary/secondary/interview, rather than gaming the system and saying what you think they want to hear. Case in point: I acknowledged that, compared to other applicants, I don't have as much clinical experience. I also discussed my failure to gain acceptance at UWSOM last year, and weighed the pros and cons of the "risk" associated with becoming a re-applicant to the ESFCOM in 2017. I also made it clear I am not a Washington native, but argued why WA is so important to me. From a traditional standpoint, all of these points are very taboo.
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Not sure what you are disagree with me on - none of your points are contradictory to mine...rural/underserved medicine is important, but not the whole picture, and doesn't mean every student needs/wants to practice in rural. Notice how I said "In all seriousness" indicating my first comment was in jest? I'll remind you the bullet points of the secondary essay
  • Your strongest or most important connections to the state of Washington and the people who live here
  • Your motivation to train as a physician and serve the communities of Washington
  • Your goals as a physician, including your interests in practicing medicine in rural or underserved communities
If it wasn't important, why would they specifically ask you to address it?
 
msislander said:
ESFCOM set very low bar on MCAT requirement, would that be a concern?
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I wouldn't be too concerned, unless your concern is that your scholastic achievements are what set you apart. All of the people involve with the creation of this school have had significant experience in operating medical schools in this country, so I doubt they would set themselves up for admitting people they didn't think could handle the work. What it does is level the playing field a lot for people that would otherwise flat out get rejected by other schools. I also tend to think that ESFCOM's requirements might go up as the years go by and they become a more competitive school (just my opinion). Additionally, the new MCAT came out in 2015, so those who were the first to take it still haven't even taken step 1 yet. This means that there isn't any hard proof that scoring below a 500 means you wont pass your steps. Most schools are still using the MCAT as a measurement of ability, and the higher you score the better.
 
tluedeke said:
Agree, it isn't the whole story. Most of the interviewees I was with on 1/6 were from urban Western WA. I mostly lived in Eastern WA, had wanted to go into medicine for rural primary care on the East Side, made it abundantly clear during the interviews, and I was neither accepted nor waitlisted. Godawags17 up above says he had thousands of hours in rural healthcare, a 35 MCAT, and a 3.8 GPA, and he wasn't accepted either.

To be perfectly honest, I really don't understand what ESFCOM is looking for. I thought I did, but I don't.
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To follow up on this, I took a quick look at the accepted class on facebook and took a quick unofficial sample of where these accepted applicants are from. By far, the majority of the applicants are from Seattle or from another urbanized area in the state. Very few, from what I can tell, are actually from rural regions of the state. I know this isn't a solid metric, but it is worth consideration when thinking about what the school is actually looking for- by this metric, coming from a rural region has little to do with acceptance.
 
Also I got the sense that most applicants had impressive scholastic backgrounds for the most part even if the initial bar at WSU was set somewhat low.
 
How many seats do you think they'll offer up at the end of March? So far the Facebook group has 49 people in it, if not more. So are we to guess maybe 10 people? for what? the 80 that are left?
 
mavric1298 said:
On a scale of 1-10 I would say a 9.95
In all seriousness though, I would say it's important, but not the only thing. Serving underprivileged/indigent patients fits with the mission statement as well. Read the statement, and know that it's one of the more important aspects of applying there
Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile
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I added the emphasis in your quote. Then take a look at tluedeke's response:

tluedeke said:
Agree, it isn't the whole story. Most of the interviewees I was with on 1/6 were from urban Western WA. I mostly lived in Eastern WA, had wanted to go into medicine for rural primary care on the East Side, made it abundantly clear during the interviews, and I was neither accepted nor waitlisted. Godawags17 up above says he had thousands of hours in rural healthcare, a 35 MCAT, and a 3.8 GPA, and he wasn't accepted either.

To be perfectly honest, I really don't understand what ESFCOM is looking for. I thought I did, but I don't.
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There seems to be a disconnect, but none of us are on the ADCOM. If rural primary care experience/desire is one of the 'more important aspects', tluedeke and Godawags17 would have prime candidates, and I would have been left out to dry. WRT to the original question asked, "How important is showing you have a dedication to rural medicine in getting accepted here?" I think it's part of their holistic review, not "one of the more important aspects of applying there". Also, 'underserved' is not mutually exclusive from 'populated'. Just my 2¢.
 
I don't get why people don't understand this; you can't look at random bits of info and draw conclusions - yeah so someone posted they have lots of hours in rural and high scholastics - but because they weren't accepted we can't say "oh well thats not important because 1 candidate who had blah blah blah wasn't accepted. For all you know (no offensive to tluedeke I'm just making a point) they could have talked about how s/he wanted to get into medicine for all the hot chicks/dudes, power and money during their interview. Just like earlier trying to connect random bits of info about whether site selection affected acceptances, people are making speculations based on random tidbits or n=1.

For example - the fact that most people in the FB group are from western Washington doesn't mean there is a preference for that, or that being from eastern isn't beneficial. The more likely case is there is more applicants from the more populated west side. But because we don't know any of the details, we can't draw any conclusions. This is basic science 101. I posted this before and I'll post this again; http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

If they clearly spell out that they want you to address you interest in rural/underserved medicine in a secondary - it means it has some importance to them. I specifically pointed out that it could be rural or underserved (and I think we all understand that under served isn't directly linked with population size. Indigent communities are prevalent in big cities too).
 
mavric1298 said:
For all you know (no offensive to tluedeke I'm just making a point) they could have talked about how s/he wanted to get into medicine for all the hot chicks/dudes, power and money during their interview.
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I was under the impression that this was one of the assets they were looking for. 😉
crzyryno said:
Accepted. Interviewed first day. I am thrilled. I am mostly excited to meet the cute nursing students.........
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Then again I'm working on an n=1 here.
 
mavric1298 said:
I don't get why people don't understand this; you can't look at random bits of info and draw conclusions - yeah so someone posted they have lots of hours in rural and high scholastics - but because they weren't accepted we can't say "oh well thats not important because 1 candidate who had blah blah blah wasn't accepted. For all you know (no offensive to tluedeke I'm just making a point) they could have talked about how s/he wanted to get into medicine for all the hot chicks/dudes, power and money during their interview. Just like earlier trying to connect random bits of info about whether site selection affected acceptances, people are making speculations based on random tidbits or n=1.

For example - the fact that most people in the FB group are from western Washington doesn't mean there is a preference for that, or that being from eastern isn't beneficial. The more likely case is there is more applicants from the more populated west side. But because we don't know any of the details, we can't draw any conclusions. This is basic science 101. I posted this before and I'll post this again; http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

If they clearly spell out that they want you to address you interest in rural/underserved medicine in a secondary - it means it has some importance to them. I specifically pointed out that it could be rural or underserved (and I think we all understand that under served isn't directly linked with population size. Indigent communities are prevalent in big cities too).
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Couldn't agree with you more. We don't have enough data to make any statistical inference about ESFCOM'S accepted pool. However, I think we have a lot of built up emotions on this thread and people are looking for correlations wherever they can
 
I was not trying to create linear correlations with n=1 (and believe it not, I've actually seen it done in my engineering career). What I was trying to do, however, is stimulate discussion on what exactly ESFCOM was ultimately looking for in the charter class, based upon acceptance patterns. Given their mission/values statement and foundational goals of establishing the school, it seems like it would have been pretty clear. The evidence I'm seeing (small sample size may it be) seems a lot murkier.

For example, I would have laid money on the table that they would have prioritized candidates either from or wanting to practice in MUA/MUP areas, and not just selected urban Western WA candidates (who are quite likely to end back up in urban Western WA). The ESFCOM feasibility study in 2014 pointed out that the school would solve two problems: (1) Not enough physicians being produced by UWSOM to serve state demands (125/year, plus DOs from PNWU), and (2) the physicians that were being produced were maldistributed with respect to need (18 of 39 counties in Washington have 10 or fewer physicians per 10,000 population, King County over 4X that). MUA/MUP areas are primarily East Side (ftp://ftp.doh.wa.gov/geodata/layers/maps/mua_p.pdf).

I've requested an application review in my own case. Perhaps Leila's review and suggestions for improvement will shed light on the matter.
 
Just curious, but have there been any students accepted who are Washington residents, yet have lived the majority of their lives outside of the state?
 
Guys, they took 60 students but they interviewed many more students than 60... some people (almost all) aren't going to get an acceptance call. It sucks, but this is why you apply broadly.
 
crzyryno said:
Guys, they took 60 students but they interviewed many more students than 60... some people (almost all) aren't going to get an acceptance call. It sucks, but this is why you apply broadly.
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While this is true, and you should definitely apply broadly, you should also never give up on the idea of "why not me?" The odds always look bleak if you look at numbers, but if you're still in the running at this point and you really want to go here, you might as well not give up on your chances until you actually get a rejection letter. You don't have much to lose by staying positive.
 
amdg77 said:
While this is true, and you should definitely apply broadly, you should also never give up on the idea of "why not me?" The odds always look bleak if you look at numbers, but if you're still in the running at this point and you really want to go here, you might as well not give up on your chances until you actually get a rejection letter. You don't have much to lose by staying positive.
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Well said.
 
crzyryno said:
Guys, they took 60 students but they interviewed many more students than 60... some people (almost all) aren't going to get an acceptance call. It sucks, but this is why you apply broadly.
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psychedskier said:
Thank you for enlightening us.
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Indeed. Some of us have yet to have been considered for any seat.

Congrats on your acceptance - that must be both incredibly exciting and relieving. With that in mind, I might encourage extending a bit more empathy for those who are biting their nails waiting.
 
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I think psychedskier is going to get in sheerly due to his pursuit of Shang Tsung-esque soul consumption powers... and the ability to reference both Star Wars and the princess bride in the same thread. Epic.

And freak7 also... because he's still rockin a Santa hat and its March. Legit.
 
You'll all get taken somewhere - it is inevitable.
 
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The odds of me showing love are about 3,720 to 1, about the same for navigating an asteroid field. 🙂
 
crzyryno said:
You'll all get taken somewhere - it is inevitable.
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Your overconfidence is your weakness...

Edit: I was really hoping to hear about how my faith in my friends was mine... (anybody?)
 
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