2020-2021 Waitlist Support Thread

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I think what’s in an LOI is more important than whether or not you submit one.

Are you showing why you want to attend a school?
Giving off specific examples?
Showing why you align with their mission?
And updating them on what you’ve done in the past year to show that even further?

Adcoms can see our passion and want to attend their institution, you just got to express it well enough. If there’s one thing I learned this cycle, it’s that being yourself, and proud of who you are and what you want to do, can honestly take you a long way.
 
Blue Lion said:
I think what’s in an LOI is more important than whether or not you submit one.

Are you showing why you want to attend a school?
Giving off specific examples?
Showing why you align with their mission?
And updating them on what you’ve done in the past year to show that even further?

Adcoms can see our passion and want to attend their institution, you just got to express it well enough. If there’s one thing I learned this cycle, it’s that being yourself, and proud of who you are and what you want to do, can honestly take you a long way.
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i feel like i did exactly that but no luck 😭
 
wegotthis20201234 said:
i feel like i did exactly that but no luck 😭
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A lot of people are doing it as well. Just got to do your best to convey yourself, and hope someone takes a chance on you.

But as always, you’re more than your app, be sure to take this time to enjoy life and not fret over something not within your control.
 
gyngyn said:
There are folks this cycle who have sent a sworn oath that they would attend, then told us that they got a better offer. I guess we're back to the old observation that it's all just pillow talk.
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I am fully on board with making such an action worthy of being blacklisted by all med schools.

#MakeLOIsGreatAgain

Lol but for real though. I'm not sure how it would be enforced, but I really hope one day they do make these letters binding. Kind of like how the whole ED process works.
 
WL applicants in July be like...
1620875621703.jpeg
 
Is the biggest WL wave supposed to be 2 weeks into May/next week? I've heard this suggested

I'm on 3 upper-mid tier waitlists after 7 interviews, including 2 T10 schools. My advisor, who is very experienced, is adamant I will get off at least one, but too busy to give me play by play. I don't have any clear deficiencies in my app (as evidence by the 7 IIs), but I'm also a white dude from CA who doesn't come as particularly emotional/ecstatic to have a figurative gun held to my head by adcoms.
 
blinkblink2 said:
Is the biggest WL wave supposed to be 2 weeks into May/next week? I've heard this suggested

I'm on 3 upper-mid tier waitlists after 7 interviews, including 2 T10 schools. My advisor, who is very experienced, is adamant I will get off at least one, but too busy to give me play by play. I don't have any clear deficiencies in my app (as evidence by the 7 IIs), but I'm also a white dude from CA who doesn't come as particularly emotional/ecstatic to have a figurative gun held to my head by adcoms.
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I'm personally going to start working on reapps in the next few days. I'm on 4 WLs (including 3 T10s), and sent in LOIs quite recently to the schools. I hope movement at the schools occur but I'm not counting on it. I'm also from CA, though I'm Asian.
 
fogo said:
I'm personally going to start working on reapps in the next few days. I'm on 4 WLs (including 3 T10s), and sent in LOIs quite recently to the schools. I hope movement at the schools occur but I'm not counting on it. I'm also from CA, though I'm Asian.
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I'd rather be on mid-tier than T10 WLs lol. We both got screwed over, at least in part, by yield protecting schools that assumed we had acceptances, I'd guess


Do you all think that an update to a school regarding something personal/beyond my control yielding a response of "we won't forget about you when waitlists movement starts" is meaningful, or am I being placated?
 
blinkblink2 said:
Is the biggest WL wave supposed to be 2 weeks into May/next week? I've heard this suggested

I'm on 3 upper-mid tier waitlists after 7 interviews, including 2 T10 schools. My advisor, who is very experienced, is adamant I will get off at least one, but too busy to give me play by play. I don't have any clear deficiencies in my app (as evidence by the 7 IIs), but I'm also a white dude from CA who doesn't come as particularly emotional/ecstatic to have a figurative gun held to my head by adcoms.
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Where did you hear this suggested? The speculation here is that we are in the middle of the biggest wave right now, as evidenced by all of the people who have been reporting success since the last few days in April.

This doesn't really matter to you one way or the other, since movement at your schools is really the only thing that will help you. And, in an unfortunate Catch-22 for you, while T10 IIs and WLs are an impressive accomplishment, WL movement at them seems to be less than at lower tier schools, at least so far.

I can't think of a good reason it would be delayed there, so this might be an indication that they predicted yield accurately and won't be having a lot of WL movement. The second week of May is too soon to make this determination, but it's definitely a possibility.

Your advisor is correct that, statistically, 3 WLs should translate into an A, but you need healthy WL movement for that to become reality, and we are just not seeing that yet at upper-mid tiers. There is nothing to do at this point except wait.
 
blinkblink2 said:
I'd rather be on mid-tier than T10 WLs lol. We both got screwed over, at least in part, by yield protecting schools that assumed we had acceptances, I'd guess


Do you all think that an update to a school regarding something personal/beyond my control yielding a response of "we won't forget about you when waitlists movement starts" is meaningful, or am I being placated?
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Not placated, and also not saying anything beyond we know you are on the WL. I wouldn't read anything into it beyond it being an acknowledgement of your update.
 
To clarify, it's only the mid-tier schools that I'm WL at though one of them is said to be top 5 in terms of lowest percentage admitted (though less unfavorable than it sounds as post-II A rate 50-60%).

My app is objectively very strong, including all that would be expected, as well as much that is distinctive to relation of my non-science major to medicine. I am a paid writer, so writing quality is going to stand out. I'm at/above median GPA/MCAT for matriculants at all 3 schools.

Do you think considering all that the odds would be thought to be even more strongly in my favor than 3 WL alone would indicate? Thanks
 
blinkblink2 said:
To clarify, it's only the mid-tier schools that I'm WL at though one of them is said to be top 5 in terms of lowest percentage admitted (though less unfavorable than it sounds as post-II A rate 50-60%).

My app is objectively very strong, including all that would be expected, as well as much that is distinctive to relation of my non-science major to medicine. I am a paid writer, so writing quality is going to stand out. I'm at/above median GPA/MCAT for matriculants at all 3 schools.

Do you think considering all that the odds would be thought to be even more strongly in my favor than 3 WL alone would indicate? Thanks
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Sorry, I misunderstood about the WLs.

In that case, I think what I've been consistently saying for the past two weeks totally applies to you, which is to say, I agree with your advisor! Your 3 WLs are statistically likely to turn into one A before the music stops this summer.

Yes, the biggest wave is right now. It's not over yet, but, even when it is, there will be a succession of smaller waves right into June and July. It doesn't stop until every seat, at every school, is filled.

Every time an A goes to someone who doesn't already have one, that's one less call that will go out in the next wave, but, just keep in mind that every A going to someone already holding one is going to trigger another call in a week or two at one school or another.

It's very difficult, but you just have to try to be patient and have faith that 7 IIs and 3 WLs, with an objectively strong application, is going to result in at least one call. It's impossible to say whether your objectively strong application puts you in a better that typical position.

For that, we'd need to know whether your WLs schools rejected anyone post-II. Some schools do while others don't. If your schools don't, then we don't have any way to know whether your WLs are really soft Rs or true WLs.

Take your 60% post-II A school. If everyone not accepted goes on the WL, and they don't tell you where you are on the list, you could have a great chance or no chance, and we have no visibility into which camp you fall into. On the other hand, if they have a small WL and reject 30% post-II, then you have an excellent chance.

Do you happen to know whether any of your schools rejected anyone post-II?
 
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KnightDoc said:
Sorry, I misunderstood about the WLs.

In that case, I think what I've been consistently saying for the past two weeks totally applies to you, which is to say, I agree with your advisor! Your 3 WLs are statistically likely to turn into one A before the music stops this summer.

Yes, the biggest wave is right now. It's not over yet, but, even when it is, there will be a succession of smaller waves right into June and July. It doesn't stop until every seat, at every school, is filled.

Every time an A goes to someone who doesn't already have one, that's one less call that will go out in the next wave, but, just keep in mind that every A going to someone already holding one is going to trigger another call in a week or two at one school or another.

It's very difficult, but you just have to try to be patient and have faith that 7 IIs and 3 WLs, with an objectively strong application, is going to result in at least one call. It's impossible to say whether your objectively strong application puts you in a better that typical position.

For that, we'd need to know whether your WLs schools rejected anyone post-II. Some schools do while others don't. If your schools don't, then we don't have any way to know whether your WLs are really soft Rs or true WLs.

Take your 60% post-II A school. If everyone not accepted goes on the WL, and they don't tell you where you are on the list, you could have a great chance or no chance, and we have no visibility into which camp you fall into. On the other hand, if they have a small WL and reject 30% post-II, then you have an excellent chance.

Do you happen to know whether any of your schools rejected anyone post-II?
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At least one of them does do post-II rejections, as I saw one poster say this. The other two, it's either few or none. No postings, but I can't really confirm it because reporting is low.

My advisor (who for reference runs this big deal company out of NYC to which I attribute my MCAT score) disagrees with the post-II R school-to-school distinction, as all schools exercise the right to reject interviewees on occasion and that WL means you are, in fact, under consideration. A smaller WL pool is a better one to be inn, though.
 
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blinkblink2 said:
At least one of them does do post-II rejections, as I saw one poster say this. The other two, it's either few or none. No postings, but I can't really confirm it because reporting is low.
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So, this means you survived at least one additional cut. Without more transparency from the schools, you are flying blind and just have to go with the numbers. 3 WLs are better than less, and not as good as more.

With an average post-II acceptance rate at all schools around 35% or so (low is around 15% and high is over 70%), being on 3 WLs should result in an A, but there are no guarantees. Being objectively strong really doesn't tell us anything because you don't yet have an A, and we will never know exactly why that is.
 
vegangirl1 said:
do yall think its worth it to update a school im WL at with my final grades for this semester and the fact that i was accepted into an honors society for my degree or they don't really care at this point ? (i sent some other updates last month + LOI)
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Can't hurt. It is news, and it's good, so, why not? Nothing to lose, everything to gain.
 
tunaktunak said:
I'm not sure how it would be enforced, but I really hope one day they do make these letters binding. Kind of like how the whole ED process works.
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Unfortunately, those who abide by the honor system by sending a true letter of intent are screwed over by the (many) applicants who casually dole out letter(s) and/or renege once better offer(s) come along. Short of a centralized process (of which there seems to be little appetite to implement), I suspect letters of intent will continue to be seen with suspicion unless serious financial repercussions await those who break them.

Some implementations that can restore the value of letters of intent:
- at their discretion, medical schools can charge up to a year's worth of tuition (or some fraction thereof) to those who renege on their letter of intent and matriculate elsewhere.
- medical schools require a non-refundable deposit with any letter of intent, which can be applied to their tuition upon their matriculation (or returned back to the applicant should they not be accepted).

In both cases, these charges can be implemented with a sliding scale to avoid favoring those with financial means. Obviously, neither of these ideas are applicant-friendly, so I would hate to see them implemented in these forms. But, if the goal is to #makeLOIsgreatagain, cynically, appealing to one's wallet will have much greater success than appealing to one's integrity.
 
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KnightDoc said:
So, this means you survived at least one additional cut. Without more transparency from the schools, you are flying blind and just have to go with the numbers. 3 WLs are better than less, and not as good as more.

With an average post-II acceptance rate at all schools around 35% or so (low is around 15% and high is over 70%), being on 3 WLs should result in an A, but there are no guarantees. Being objectively strong really doesn't tell us anything because you don't yet have an A, and we will never know exactly why that is.
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I think it is because of my interview performance, but beyond the element of it I can control, the fact that I am exactly the sort of person "do-gooder" type adcoms join up to block from admission. I'm not a sympathetic figure, despite having done all the work
 
blinkblink2 said:
I think it is because of my interview performance, but beyond the element of it I can control, the fact that I am exactly the sort of person "do-gooder" type adcoms join up to block from admission. I'm not a sympathetic figure, despite having done all the work
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Now you're getting into the subjective sort of stuff that is impossible to knowledgeably analyze on an anonymous forum, other than to say that adcoms tell us we suck at judging our own interview performance.

If you are right, that could undermine your otherwise strong application, but, who knows? You survived a post-II R round, so your performance might be fine.

Again, it sucks, but, with none of us inside the adcom meetings, and your schools not giving you visibility into your WL position, you have no choice but to chill and see what happens.
 
blinkblink2 said:
At least one of them does do post-II rejections, as I saw one poster say this. The other two, it's either few or none. No postings, but I can't really confirm it because reporting is low.

My advisor (who for reference runs this big deal company out of NYC to which I attribute my MCAT score) disagrees with the post-II R school-to-school distinction, as all schools exercise the right to reject interviewees on occasion and that WL means you are, in fact, under consideration. A smaller WL pool is a better one to be inn, though.
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Sure, this is technically true, but, so what? If a school places ALL non-accepted interviewed candidates on the WL, then being on the WL doesn't necessarily mean you are really under consideration, even though technically you are because you haven't yet been rejected.

To use your example of the school with the 60% post-II acceptance rate, if they accept 50% right away and pull another 10% from a WL containing half of the people interviewed (everyone who wasn't accepted), almost that entire WL is going to be rejected (80% of it). What would your big deal advisor say about that? I'd say the being on the WL would have more meaning if the school rejected 30% of its interviewees post interview.
 
A doc I shadowed told me he got off the waitlist for a med school in July after being ghosted for months. (This was in the 90’s)

You really can’t predict what the future holds, you just have to wait it out a bit but also devise a plan B at the same time.
 
Blue Lion said:
I think what’s in an LOI is more important than whether or not you submit one.

Are you showing why you want to attend a school?
Giving off specific examples?
Showing why you align with their mission?
And updating them on what you’ve done in the past year to show that even further?

Adcoms can see our passion and want to attend their institution, you just got to express it well enough. If there’s one thing I learned this cycle, it’s that being yourself, and proud of who you are and what you want to do, can honestly take you a long way.
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Eh, I poured my soul into mine, aligned to the mission, gave examples and updates...still nothing. I honestly wonder if they even read them, or someone just claims "we'll add it to your file" and no one looks at it.
 
BigRed0017 said:
Eh, I poured my soul into mine, aligned to the mission, gave examples and updates...still nothing. I honestly wonder if they even read them, or someone just claims "we'll add it to your file" and no one looks at it.
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+1

In fact, the people on SDN who did get into my top choice, a vast majority of them said they didn't send LOI's (even though the school says they welcome LOI's). 🙁
 
Trying to order an official transcript and the website just crashed and will not load. The last time this happened, it was the 2022 AMCAS application that crashed and wouldn’t load! This has gotta be a sign from the universe 😂😂🤡
 
Rheopecty said:
I think a cool system (that no one will implement) is that on April 30th:
  1. You see all school that WL'ed you.
  2. You are allowed to LOCK IN one school that WL'ed you as a "Intent to Enroll" (ITE)
  3. Schools cannot see if you ITE someone else or at all.
  4. If accepted, ITE becomes an automatic CTE (if CTE was not previously chosen by the applicant during the period between ITE selection and ITE A).
Thoughts?
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Indeed a very cool system, but do we think AAMC is gonna help us like this? I say unlikely 🥲
 
I threw my app in the well, don't ask me, I'll never tell
I looked to you as it fell and now you're in my way
I trade my soul for an Acceptance, thousands and thousands for that degree
I wasn't looking for this, but now you're in my way
Your committee was holdin', ripped my application, weak MCAT was showin'
Hot night, wind was blowin'
Where you think you're going, baby?
Hey, I just met you (almost 20 weeks ago) and this is crazy
But here's my number, so call me, maybe
It's hard to look right at you, baby
But here's my number, so call me, maybe
Hey, I just met you and this is crazy
But here's my number, so call me, maybe
And none of the other schools try to chase me
But here's my number, so call me, maybe
You took your time with the call, I took no time with my secondary
You gave me nothing at all, but still, you're in my way
I beg, and borrow and steal, at first sight and it's real
I didn't know I would feel it, but it's in my way, give me my A
 
swiftcoffeemed said:
Someone told me they knew people last cycle that got off the WL well into July....I will vomit
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If the alternative was being removed from the WL at the end of May, would that prevent you from vomiting? 😎

I don't say this to be snarky, but to remind everyone that while being in limbo totally sucks and can be very unnerving, there really is an alternative. You can provide yourselves with closure and certainty by withdrawing at any time. Last minute calls are there for those who are grateful to receive them when something causes someone to withdraw at the last minute.

No one is supposed to vomit as a result, and absolutely no one is forced to drop everything and move across the country on a moment's notice. Lots of people are thrilled to have the opportunity to do so, and that's why this is a thing.
 
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Could we potentially get off the WL the day before school starts? Just thinking about how to plan for jobs/etc 😅
 
pls2468 said:
Could we potentially get off the WL the day before school starts? Just thinking about how to plan for jobs/etc 😅
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It's very rare, but it does happen. It even happens the first few days AFTER school starts. Schools will do EVERYTHING in their power to keep a seat from going to waste.
 
On a positive note, the admissions director at one school has reported greater than normal WL movement this year that is continuing TODAY.

This cannot help but have ripple effects across other schools, or conversely, be caused by greater movement at other schools.

Please don't read this as a guarantee for anyone, but, it is a positive, tangible data point in a thread seemingly starved for one.

Keep the faith.
 
NoEyeEyeGuy said:
but but....schools lose money from their med students actually. or so they claim.
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oh wait nevermind...this was with residents. im not sure about med students actually. i wonder if med students are actually profitable to a school or not? is the cost of educating them higher than what we pay?
 
armaragon said:
Schools will do EVERYTHING in their power to not lose money from a potential seat. FIFY lol
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Sure, but that's not really the driver. The driver really is the limited number of seats, the physician shortage, and the fact they cannot over enroll. After all, unlike UG, they are not so hungry for money that they accept transfers to fill the seats of those who withdraw or flunk out!!
 
KnightDoc said:
On a positive note, the admissions director at one school has reported greater than normal WL movement this year that is continuing TODAY.

This cannot help but have ripple effects across other schools, or conversely, be caused by greater movement at other schools.

Please don't read this as a guarantee for anyone, but, it is a positive, tangible data point in a thread seemingly starved for one.

Keep the faith.
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Which school?
 
KnightDoc said:
If the alternative were being removed from the WL at the end of May, would that prevent you from vomiting? 😎

I don't say this to be snarky, but to remind everyone that while being in limbo totally sucks and can be very unnerving, there really is an alternative. You can provide yourselves with closure and certainty by withdrawing at any time. Last minute calls are there for those who are grateful to receive them when something causes someone to withdraw at the last minute.

No one is supposed to vomit as a result, and absolutely no one is forced to drop everything and move across the country on a moment's notice. Lots of people are thrilled to have the opportunity to do so, and that's why this is a thing.
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Haha if I get in I’ll be fine but the vomiting part is more so for the prolonged wait for an acceptance
 
Dr.EMD said:
I just want a life outside of anxiety, MCAT, and applications. Is that too much to ask for? 🙁
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im trying to throw myself into work as much as possible these days. i know i have a long ~three month road ahead of me to wait before it is officially over, and the days go by a lot faster when i book them with things that keep me from refreshing sdn/email
 
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