2018-2019 Waitlist Support Thread

Applying to Med School? Get In Or Your Money Back
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Pharaoh95 said:
Did you just assume my gender?
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Of course not. In the same way that I use "dude" and "guy" for any gender. ...sorry if that offended you...

(IDK if you're trying to pick a fight right now or what, so I'm just gonna move on)
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thegrind33 said:
Then what do you think causes an applicant to snatch that WL instead of an A after an interview went really well (or at least felt like it)?
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Interviewers only have so much say in front of the admissions committee decision-makers. There are many different ways that ADCOMS operate, but many times, the interviewer is just one voice of many. If you have a good interview, even if you have THE BEST interview, they will advocate for you in front of the rest of the committee, but remember that there are other interviewers who had good interviews with other applicants and they will be advocating for THEIR favorites. And complicated power dynamics come into play - if an interviewer is powerful on the committee, their word may count more than someone else's word (not always obvious by looking at their cv - they may be powerful bc they always agree to interview for last minute cancelations, etc, or they have more availability than others that year). Some interviewers seem to like everyone, so their positive word means less than someone else who is usually more critical.

See also staircase analogy by LizzyM. The interview can only help you go up a few stairs. Even if someone is middle of the pack stats-wise for a given school, if they are ORM, that is likely only going to get them to WL (remember the stats are for matriculated students, many of whom come off the WL for a lot of schools - so there is hope).

And keep in mind that there are going to be the hard luck stories, the army rangers, the single-mother-fire-jumpers, etc whose stats understandably are somewhat below average for the schools accepting them. Which means if you are NOT in those categories, you need to start out on a pretty high stair AND have a terrific interview. In the end, most students with good stats who choose their school list thoughtfully, and do well in interviews, will end up with an acceptance.
 
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ThrowawayShmoaway said:
Of course not. In the same way that I use "dude" and "guy" for any gender. ...sorry if that offended you...

(IDK if you're trying to pick a fight right now or what, so I'm just gonna move on)
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mmaslyanko said:
i thought you are male too... if you click on your picture it says "male". but maybe you just didnt change that
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Guys, CMON. I'm obviously joking :laugh: But I guess sarcasm doesn't travel well over text
 
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thegrind33 said:
Then what do you think causes an applicant to snatch that WL instead of an A after an interview went really well (or at least felt like it)?
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The committee has more information, time to digest it and a multiplicity of opinions compared to the screener. It is also likely that the self-assessment of the interview was in error. A good interviewer makes everyone feel that their voice was heard (especially the weakest interviewees!).
 
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Master Thinker said:
Not going to do this, but what if someone sends a LOI with a notary? I think I saw someone gave that idea on this forum, and in practice, would it make them more believable?
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A notary is merely confirming that the person signing the document is the person in question. They are in no way confirming the person's truthfulness.
 
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On two waitlists, and just praying that I get into any school
 
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Current M2 and former waitlistee here dropping in to give some support. I was finally accepted after being waitlisted for 3 cycles in a row! There's hope, hang in there!
 
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Finished last interview. (Unless there will be another last minute II). At this point I have 3WL, and waiting for two decisions . And now we wait :)))
 
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Just got a last minute interview for this Monday, and my top choice releases acceptances next week. Really hoping get an A soon
 
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well after months of being on waitlist hell I got 2 IIs this week on back-to-back days. I have no idea how this happened but I will happily take it lol.
 
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Sheiko said:
Just got a last minute interview for this Monday, and my top choice releases acceptances next week. Really hoping get an A soon
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Ohh wow, do you mind sharing which school? Congrats and good luck! My top choice also releases acceptances next week too so I am low key freaking out haha
 
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This wait is treacherous.
 
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Harambe said:
Ohh wow, do you mind sharing which school? Congrats and good luck! My top choice also releases acceptances next week too so I am low key freaking out haha
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Mayo? And the II is to a state school
 
Didn't know there was a thread for this. Currently on 3 WLs. Received 2 oos IIs last week but I am assuming they are essentially interviews for waitlist spots. Still very grateful and I'll be attending both of them.

Praying I get into my top choice, even sent a letter of intent last week but I'm not sure if that does anything.
 
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LikeAirIRise said:
Didn't know there was a thread for this. Currently on 3 WLs. Received 2 oos IIs last week but I am assuming they are essentially interviews for waitlist spots. Still very grateful and I'll be attending both of them.

Praying I get into my top choice, even sent a letter of intent last week but I'm not sure if that does anything.
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This almost exactly describes my situation
 
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Just caught another waitlist decision, and had my (presumably) final interview today. That makes three more schools to hear back from. This waiting game is rough
 
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Sheiko said:
Just caught another waitlist decision, and had my (presumably) final interview today. That makes three more schools to hear back from. This waiting game is rough
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Dude, that’s rough. I’m really sorry man.

But hey, just remember that being on the waitlist this year means much more hope. Especially since you are on several of them!
 
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Sheiko said:
Just caught another waitlist decision, and had my (presumably) final interview today. That makes three more schools to hear back from. This waiting game is rough
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Hang in there. Way more people will get off the waitlist this year, I bet. Schools are waitlisting a lot more applicants.
 
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Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
Hang in there. Way more people will get off the waitlist this year, I bet. Schools are waitlisting a lot more applicants.
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And I don’t know why tbh. I feel the like the opposite would be more beneficial. Because if they waitlist more, then they outright accept less. Which means that they have less “confirmed” candidates after April 30. I use confirmed in parantheses because I know they can still ditch on a last minute waitlist pull somewhere else. Building a class off the waitlist after April 30 seems kinda risky.
 
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ClamShell said:
And I don’t know why tbh. I feel the like the opposite would be more beneficial. Because if they waitlist more, then they outright accept less. Which means that they have less “confirmed” candidates after April 30. I use confirmed in parantheses because I know they can still ditch on a last minute waitlist pull somewhere else. Building a class off the waitlist after April 30 seems kinda risky.
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It’s actually less risky to build off the waitlist. It’s easier to take more people off the waitlist than to find yourself with too many accepted students. People get fired for that. Since they don’t know how people are going to respond this year without the accepted students report, they are being more cautious with their acceptances.
 
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Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
Hang in there. Way more people will get off the waitlist this year, I bet. Schools are waitlisting a lot more applicants.
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I sure hope so man. Hopefully I get an acceptance from the schools I have left to hear back from, I really don't want to be hoping for waitlist movement through the summer.
 
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Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
It’s actually less risky to build off the waitlist. It’s easier to take more people off the waitlist than to find yourself with too many accepted students. People get fired for that. Since they don’t know how people are going to respond this year without the accepted students report, they are being more cautious with their acceptances.
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Sheiko said:
I sure hope so man. Hopefully I get an acceptance from the schools I have left to hear back from, I really don't want to be hoping for waitlist movement through the summer.
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I feel like wait-list movement will start in March/April and will actively last a while compared to previous years when it was just concentrated mostly in May/June.

The reason why I think it will start earlier is because in March when most schools have sent interview decisions for all applicants, they may end up with empty spots because of the lower number of people getting accepted outright who may then withdraw their acceptance. There is no reason for the school to wait until after April 30 to fill those spots.

The reason why I think it will end later is because applicants might be on multiple waitlists so the waitlist frenzy will go on longer as (for example) an applicant gets accepted off the waitlist for school X and then withdraws a couple weeks later for another wait list acceptance from school Y, and now school X has to pull off someone else for that spot.

So I think the whole wait list movement portion of the cycle will be prolonged considerably.
 
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Sheiko said:
I sure hope so man. Hopefully I get an acceptance from the schools I have left to hear back from, I really don't want to be hoping for waitlist movement through the summer.
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I'm in nearly the same boat. 4 interviews, 2 waitlists and waiting to hear from two more. Really worried I'll end up on 4 waitlists and just anxious until June/July. Yes, its somewhat probable I'll be able to get off one of them, but I feel like my entire life is in flux until then.
 
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ClamShell said:
I feel like wait-list movement will start in March/April and will actively last a while compared to previous years when it was just concentrated mostly in May/June.

The reason why I think it will start earlier is because in March when most schools have sent interview decisions for all applicants, they may end up with empty spots because of the lower number of people getting accepted outright who may then withdraw their acceptance. There is no reason for the school to wait until after April 30 to fill those spots.

The reason why I think it will end later is because applicants might be on multiple waitlists so the waitlist frenzy will go on longer as (for example) an applicant gets accepted off the waitlist for school X and then withdraws a couple weeks later for another wait list acceptance from school Y, and now school X has to pull off someone else for that spot.

So I think the whole wait list movement portion of the cycle will be prolonged considerably.
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I've actually had adcoms tell me it will likely start later than normal, but will continue later than normal.
 
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thegrind33 said:
Very informative and good read, but how do advoms select off of the waitlist? Do they re-review people waitlisted or is it ranked and they just go down? And how much do LOI or updates come into play?
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Different schools do it differently. Our school groups the WL applicants into tiers. Once some students decide to matriculate elsewhere, people on top tier of WL are offered spots, but not necessarily in a specific order.

There is always attention to selecting students to build a diverse class for each year. Keep in mind that diversity means more than just M/F, race/ethnicity. If a star high stats, basic science researchy student from an ivy picks BMS instead of us, then we generally replace that student with a similar student from the WL. That is why the WL is not ordered per se. There are some students who will be "high priority waitlist", and will almost definitely get in, but necessarily in "order". And there are going to be a good number who have no realistic chance of getting in, and some "courtesy waitlists" of faculty/alum kids, current PI's researchers, etc.

Patience, again, is a virtue here. I know it is anxiety-provoking, and there are even situations where the two-body problem makes it very inconvenient or impossible to wait until the last minute to know where one is going. Those are people who are going to be most hurt by the predicted increase in WL movement, bc if a partner has to find a job, decide about other grad/med schools, etc, it is already getting late.
 
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thegrind33 said:
Very informative and good read, but how do advoms select off of the waitlist? Do they re-review people waitlisted or is it ranked and they just go down? And how much do LOI or updates come into play?
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Different schools handle waitlist pull sin different ways.
People might be called on the proximity to the school ( the Admissions Dean knows locals want to stay close to home), on sttas (my Dean likes high MCATs; on some predetermined score, and whatever the needs of the Class are. For example, if you have too many guys, and you want to balance out the gender mix, then even if you have to go down further on the list, you grab up some of the female candidates.
 
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Goro said:
Different schools handle waitlist pull sin different ways.
People might be called on the proximity to the school ( the Admissions Dean knows locals want to stay close to home), on sttas (my Dean likes high MCATs; on some predetermined score, and whatever the needs of the Class are. For example, if you have too many guys, and you want to balance out the gender mix, then even if you have to go down further on the list, you grab up some of the female candidates.
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Agree. At our school, as the first day of school approaches, if and when those rare spots open up, the adcom staff will definitely be looking to the people they know will be able to give an immediate and definite affirmative reply. These will be students who are from the local area or went to UG at our school, or who currently work in labs at our school, or with partners who are already accepted/matriculated, etc. And the Dean of Admissions has more independent say at this point in the process than they have during the main admissions season.

There is never an avalanche of these last minute openings though. The majority of the WL movement is still going to happen at our school on April 15th and May 1st. Anything after June 1 will just be a trickle.
 
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gorowannabe said:
Agree. At our school, as the first day of school approaches, if and when those rare spots open up, the adcom staff will definitely be looking to the people they know will be able to give an immediate and definite affirmative reply. These will be students who are from the local area or went to UG at our school, or who currently work in labs at our school, or with partners who are already accepted/matriculated, etc.
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What about those who have sent a letter of intent and frequent updates? Or would that be less of a determinant than the above factors? Thanks!
 
Zombiegirl said:
What about those who have sent a letter of intent and frequent updates? Or would that be less of a determinant than the above factors? Thanks!
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Applicants should not send "frequent" updates. In the early and mid part of wait list season, our school assumes that unless we know otherwise for an applicant, all of the applicants are interested in getting into our school off the WL. (We will not of course know where the applicants have been accepted, so it may be a bit more unknown than in the past).

Certainly, follow any explicit rules - if the schools tells or suggests that you to send them a letter of intent or continued interest to maintain on the WL, by all means do so.

And if you do have a significant update (spring term grades, esp if phenomenonal, or publication, award), then certainly you can send an update if permitted.

What Goro and I were saying was that for that very slow trickle at the very end of the season, as school is about to start, the Dean of Admissions may need to get creative in terms of whom they select, and they are relatively free to choose from the WL pool, and they may use whatever they want to ensure greatest probability that applicant will say yes and show up immediately. LOI's do not usually work because way too many WL students send these to every place they are put on WL. And if one has sent "frequent" updates, one might be remembered in a negative light by the Admissions' Dean. I would say that especially if you are higher stats for a given school, holding acceptances for what might be considered "better" schools, but you would take a spot at school X bc it is so much a better fit for you (ie geography, mission, etc), then you might consider a well-crafted update letter (that also includes a relevant update or two) that describes why you would choose school X over the other schools to which you have been accepted. This could only be done for one school and must be 100% honest. It is likely not going to make any difference and this is only for that very slow trickle of spots that MIGHT open up as school begins.
 
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gyngyn said:
There is no way to know when waitlist movement will start or stop.
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But I think it’ll be different for every school. Some have already started. Some will continue till the day before orientation.
 
gyngyn said:
There is no way to know when waitlist movement will start or stop.
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@gyngyn So this year you will not have access to the daily acceptance/waitlist update that you used to post, correct? You will be flying completely blind in May/June/July?
 
gyngyn said:
But now I'm going to need waitlist support too!
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Although do you think it is at all possible for *some* schools to start pulling waitlisted applicants earlier?

Because if a school is accepting fewer students than usual before May 1, then that makes it more likely that the school will have a less than full class before May 1. So why would the school need to wait till May?
 
ClamShell said:
Although do you think it is at all possible for *some* schools to start pulling waitlisted applicants earlier?

Because if a school is accepting fewer students than usual before May 1, then that makes it more likely that the school will have a less than full class before May 1. So why would the school need to wait till May?
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There are a number of highly ranked schools that will be releasing all of their acceptances (or the rest of their acceptances) within the next couple of weeks. Hopefully, your peers who are sitting on multiple other acceptances, but choose to attend one of these schools. will release their other acceptances as soon as possible. However, they may be waiting to hear on Financial Aid, or second looks, or just be indecisive, and may hold onto many acceptances until April 15th, when they must go down to NO MORE THAN 3. So this is something you applicants do have some control in - releasing the spots you are not genuinely interested in accepting ASAP!

I do suspect that if this is anything like the undergrad experience, a few students just like to hold onto multiple acceptances as if they were "trophies" - in UG admissions, they call it "trophy hunting" when top students apply to every top school, regardless of fit etc. Most SDN members I have seen have been very excited to give up their excess II's, hoping their peers will get the slots. Hopefully that will happen with the acceptances.
 
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