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As per tradition, the sdn community tends to always have a separate dedicated thread to monitor waitlist movement at the University at Buffalo (SUNY), so I figure I'll be starting this up for this 2017-2018 Cycle.
Please follow the format and rules ladies and germs, and let's hope we see more waitlist movement than the past 2016-2017 cycle
.
First, a little bit of a history lesson!
UB is notorious for waitlist movement and has a very interesting waitlist system in general. It is a well known fact that after interviewing, you are given a "score" and that determines your rank on the waitlist. The vast majority of students post-interview are waitlisted, direct accept and direct rejection are ultra rare, so don't be down if you don't get that acceptance after your interview! The waitlist is then divided into 3 tiers, top tier, middle tier, and bottom tier. Based on your post-interview score, you'll be placed in one of those 3 tiers. The medical school admissions committee used to inform waitlisted students of their rank. However, in the 2013-2014 cycle, UB stopped releasing that information! Long story short, administration said the waitlist ranking release did *NOT* assuage students on the waitlist, and, ironically enough, made them more anxious, and thus the admissions committee no longer discloses rank! Not only are ranks not given out, the size of each tier is also kept hidden from applicants, so we have no idea how big the waitlist is. It isn't listed on the MSAR either.
Though in the past the waitlist has shown massive movement, since approximately 2011 or 2012 onward, the waitlist movement has decreased substantially. Traditionally, the entire top tier and mid tier of the waitlist would empty out, and the admissions committee would reach into the bottom tier! Again, while we can't approximate how large the tiers are, the fact that the two tiers would empty out implies that a lot of students are offered a seat that are initially on the waitlist. Be cautiously optimistic: the last few years have not been NEARLY as generous with respect to waitlist movement, so while you can take some solace in knowing you're on a waitlist for a medical school that traditionally shows a lot of waitlist movement, be warned that the past few years have shown drastically reduced waitlist movement.
To be safe, I'm going to draw a rather extreme analogy (I prefer to play things super safe and conservatively), if you interview, get WL'd, your chance of getting admitted are similar to getting pulled off of a WL to a more competitive school, such as, SUNY Downstate. You may tell me otherwise, and I welcome it, but please remember, this is all my own conjecture: I'm probably wrong. I just don't want to see students getting their hopes up thinking "Hey I'm WL'd at UB which basically empties their waitlist out, so time to chill out and not think about reapplying!!" Why? Because I was one of the unfortunate doomed souls that DIDN'T make it off of the UB Waitlist. If you told me that in 2007 you're WL'd at UB and you're not worried, I'd say you're set. But now, in 2017, I don't see that as happening. This is mainly because of how much more competitive medical school admissions has become since 10 years ago! ANDDDDD now, people don't see the University at Buffalo as "ew that school where it snows a lot and is super cold and named after some weird animal in the Oregon Trail game I'd play in elementary school." UB has actively taken steps to improve and become a very desirable school; Congratulations to them! UB (#67) and Stony Brook (#59) are the only two ranked SUNY medical schools as per US News & World Report #InBeforePeopleChewMeUpForCitingUSNews&WorldReport. Additionally, recent data has indicated that its far similar to my SUNY Downstate analogy. Finally, I opted to pick another SUNY school to best replicate SUNY Buffalo, and a school that generally has a large WL, hence I said SUNY Downstate. I've conducted extensive research and statistical analysis to try to crack the UB admissions process, and, with some assumptions filling in holes for data that nobody has except those on the UB Admissions Committee, I came up with this.
While we completely respect your privacy and totally understand if you do/don't want to disclose information, its always best that you fill in all the exact details of the chart. We'll be following the same format as last year's (2016-2017 UB waitlist thread) which is this:
Please post on the chart in the font Courier New to keep all the information lined up.
Username................| Interview Date | Waitlisted Date | WL to Acceptance
While I think the chart speaks for itself, you are welcome (and encouraged...) to put your SDN username under the username column, your interview date and waitlist dates under their respective columns, and (hopefully) the waitlist to acceptance date in that final column!
The waitlist tends to be monitored by those who tend to hang out on SDN...perhaps a bit too much (cough, like a certain Dr. Stalker). Lastly, if you're interested in seeing UB's SDN page last year (2016-2017) here it is, and here is the UB Waitlist thread from last year (2016-2017).
Let's hope for massive waitlist movement this year, best of luck to everyone.
Please follow the format and rules ladies and germs, and let's hope we see more waitlist movement than the past 2016-2017 cycle
.First, a little bit of a history lesson!
UB is notorious for waitlist movement and has a very interesting waitlist system in general. It is a well known fact that after interviewing, you are given a "score" and that determines your rank on the waitlist. The vast majority of students post-interview are waitlisted, direct accept and direct rejection are ultra rare, so don't be down if you don't get that acceptance after your interview! The waitlist is then divided into 3 tiers, top tier, middle tier, and bottom tier. Based on your post-interview score, you'll be placed in one of those 3 tiers. The medical school admissions committee used to inform waitlisted students of their rank. However, in the 2013-2014 cycle, UB stopped releasing that information! Long story short, administration said the waitlist ranking release did *NOT* assuage students on the waitlist, and, ironically enough, made them more anxious, and thus the admissions committee no longer discloses rank! Not only are ranks not given out, the size of each tier is also kept hidden from applicants, so we have no idea how big the waitlist is. It isn't listed on the MSAR either.
Though in the past the waitlist has shown massive movement, since approximately 2011 or 2012 onward, the waitlist movement has decreased substantially. Traditionally, the entire top tier and mid tier of the waitlist would empty out, and the admissions committee would reach into the bottom tier! Again, while we can't approximate how large the tiers are, the fact that the two tiers would empty out implies that a lot of students are offered a seat that are initially on the waitlist. Be cautiously optimistic: the last few years have not been NEARLY as generous with respect to waitlist movement, so while you can take some solace in knowing you're on a waitlist for a medical school that traditionally shows a lot of waitlist movement, be warned that the past few years have shown drastically reduced waitlist movement.
To be safe, I'm going to draw a rather extreme analogy (I prefer to play things super safe and conservatively), if you interview, get WL'd, your chance of getting admitted are similar to getting pulled off of a WL to a more competitive school, such as, SUNY Downstate. You may tell me otherwise, and I welcome it, but please remember, this is all my own conjecture: I'm probably wrong. I just don't want to see students getting their hopes up thinking "Hey I'm WL'd at UB which basically empties their waitlist out, so time to chill out and not think about reapplying!!" Why? Because I was one of the unfortunate doomed souls that DIDN'T make it off of the UB Waitlist. If you told me that in 2007 you're WL'd at UB and you're not worried, I'd say you're set. But now, in 2017, I don't see that as happening. This is mainly because of how much more competitive medical school admissions has become since 10 years ago! ANDDDDD now, people don't see the University at Buffalo as "ew that school where it snows a lot and is super cold and named after some weird animal in the Oregon Trail game I'd play in elementary school." UB has actively taken steps to improve and become a very desirable school; Congratulations to them! UB (#67) and Stony Brook (#59) are the only two ranked SUNY medical schools as per US News & World Report #InBeforePeopleChewMeUpForCitingUSNews&WorldReport. Additionally, recent data has indicated that its far similar to my SUNY Downstate analogy. Finally, I opted to pick another SUNY school to best replicate SUNY Buffalo, and a school that generally has a large WL, hence I said SUNY Downstate. I've conducted extensive research and statistical analysis to try to crack the UB admissions process, and, with some assumptions filling in holes for data that nobody has except those on the UB Admissions Committee, I came up with this.
While we completely respect your privacy and totally understand if you do/don't want to disclose information, its always best that you fill in all the exact details of the chart. We'll be following the same format as last year's (2016-2017 UB waitlist thread) which is this:
Please post on the chart in the font Courier New to keep all the information lined up.
Username................| Interview Date | Waitlisted Date | WL to Acceptance
While I think the chart speaks for itself, you are welcome (and encouraged...) to put your SDN username under the username column, your interview date and waitlist dates under their respective columns, and (hopefully) the waitlist to acceptance date in that final column!
The waitlist tends to be monitored by those who tend to hang out on SDN...perhaps a bit too much (cough, like a certain Dr. Stalker). Lastly, if you're interested in seeing UB's SDN page last year (2016-2017) here it is, and here is the UB Waitlist thread from last year (2016-2017).
Let's hope for massive waitlist movement this year, best of luck to everyone
.
