2020 Cycle Waitlist Support Thread

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cc2017 said:
Does anyone have any insight on how last year's new traffic rules ended up affecting waitlist movement across all medical schools?
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No general rule. Some schools intentionally were very conservative in initial As and had more WL movement than usual (which is probably the answer you are looking for! 🙂). Others were not conservative enough, unintentionally overenrolled, and did not go to the WL at all, while still others saw no material change (which was reported on SDN by one med school insider).

It's very school specific, and there is no way to generalize. In fact, there is speculation this year that Step 1 going P/F might cause yield at so-called higher ranked schools to spike (which, if true, would depress WL movement at those schools) and which would in turn cause WL movement at other schools to increase.
 
sun_flower580 said:
I think for me the most stressful part about a potential gap year would just be where to go. I have a highly toxic living situation at home and for that reason I know that I absolutely will not be going back home after undergrad (I am finishing my last semester of undergrad). That being said, I would have to work full time to be able to support living away. However, I am not sure If I could find a job that is medically related that would pay well enough for me to do that (also one that I could get with minimal experience) and so I guess I would have to work full time at a restaurant or something and then volunteer/shadow on the weekends? Although I am not sure if that is super impressive for a gap year since that would not be super medical. Anyone else in a similar boat of not being able to stay with their parents as a gap year option?
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I'm late to this thread but I had a similar situation for my gap year (working ~min wage, non-medical) and live independently with friends instead of parents. Taking time for interviews could really be an issue if you don't have a flexible schedule to travel, +FAP uses your parents income, along with the mess that is health insurance if you're estranged from your parents. Feel free to PM me too, I'm also on here for support (on 2 WL so far)
 
Currently on the WL at 4 MD schools and have one more interview coming up next week. I’ve been told that I’m good at interviewing, and seemed to connect with my interviewers. Not sure why this is happening. Luckily 3 out of the 4 schools have lots of WL movement every year.

The wait sucks and I don’t want to have to re apply because it’s so expensive. I used FAP for this cycle and won’t be able to use it for the next cycle since you’re only allowed to use it for fee waivers once. I’ve been paying off my mountain of tuition debt during this gap year and was barely able to save up for interviews. I’d have to take out a loan if I were to re apply
 
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Still here with you all. I’m at 6 waitlists out of 7 decisions. Lucky to be waiting on a few schools still but it’s hard to expect any other outcome :/
 
aayz345 said:
Currently on the WL at 4 MD schools and have one more interview coming up next week. I’ve been told that I’m good at interviewing, and seemed to connect with my interviewers. Not sure why this is happening. Luckily 3 out of the 4 schools have lots of WL movement every year.

The wait sucks and I don’t want to have to re apply because it’s so expensive. I used FAP for this cycle and won’t be able to use it for the next cycle since you’re only allowed to use it for fee waivers once. I’ve been paying off my mountain of tuition debt during this gap year and was barely able to save up for interviews. I’d have to take out a loan if I were to re apply
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You just have to realize it’s ****ing hard to get into medical school. You don’t necessarily have to be doing anything wrong it’s just SO competitive. The acceptance rate at ur md schools is probably 1-10 percent. Don’t take it personally. Be proud that you got 5 MD IIs, you are probably in the top 10 percent of all applicants with those numbers. Now it’s time to way, show your interest and pray lol. If you’re on 5 WL odds are ones gonna happen for you.
 
Talldoctor96 said:
You just have to realize it’s ****ing hard to get into medical school. You don’t necessarily have to be doing anything wrong it’s just SO competitive. The acceptance rate at ur md schools is probably 1-10 percent. Don’t take it personally. Be proud that you got 5 MD IIs, you are probably in the top 10 percent of all applicants with those numbers. Now it’s time to way, show your interest and pray lol. If you’re on 5 WL odds are ones gonna happen for you.
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i know you were replying to someone else but god damn did i near to hear that. This **** has gotten me down. Med school admissions has done crazy things to my mental well being haha
 
SweetBurger said:
i know you were replying to someone else but god damn did i near to hear that. This **** has gotten me down. Med school admissions has done crazy things to my mental well being haha
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I got waitlisted at 4 schools last year and didn't get in. I shook it off, applied early, prewrote my secondaries, re wrote EVERYTHING. And what motivated me was I spoke to all four schools and they told me: Your grades are good, your essays are good, your story is great. You are a great candidate we can just only take so many people. They told me to really focus on making me seem human in my application. To speak about my hobbies, what interests me outside of medicine and what makes me human! And to focus in my essays on deeper reflection as to WHY I want to be a doctor. What I truly learned about myself from my experiences and to dig deeper below the surface. The message wasn't: You just weren't a good interviewer, you weren't good enough. It was that I was good enough they just couldn't get to me. And to do a lot of reflection and improve in every possible area! I didn't have a red flag, or a bad interview. There are just simply so many deserving candidates and so few spots.

For those of you on waitlists, it very well might work out but its only one more year of your life if it doesn't. In this second unexpected gap year I fell in love with a new specialty at my job, I started eating healthier and cooking, I spent more time strengthening my relationship with my girlfriend, I am spending extra time in my family I would have never gotten, I adopted a dog, I am travelling to incredible places, I am working on my mental health, I STARTED READING AGAIN for the first time in probably 5 years. It hurt so much not to get accepted, but sitting here today sitting with an acceptance to my dream school, I realize that the doing this second gap year has completed changed my life for the better. I learned there is more to life than medicine, and that I had been living so much in the future that I was not only hurting myself but the people around me. While this journey has been nearly soul-breaking, I am grateful for my ability to take a step back and become a better person before entering medical school. It hurts so bad not to get in, but for me it was a blessing in disguise. And I spend every day appreciating my support system that picked me up when I was down and allowed me to find myself again. So, I know you may not want to hear this now. But it is going to be okay. My two big take aways from being a reapplicant are : 1) It is okay to not be okay and 2) Live in the present, not in the future. Hope this helps. Oh and JK #3 is : Believe in yourself because if you don't no one else will.
 
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Is WL movement still anticipated to speed up on April 30th? I heard from a dean of a med school that this is the first cycle in which they can't view where you've been accepted, so they're using the WL more liberally to prevent them from overfilling their class
 
aayz345 said:
Is WL movement still anticipated to speed up on April 30th? I heard from a dean of a med school that this is the first cycle in which they can't view where you've been accepted, so they're using the WL more liberally to prevent them from overfilling their class
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It was actually last year that the traffic rules changed, but yes April 30th should see some movement
 
1 rejection and 1 WL, but I have five interviews coming up this month, so that should be fun... *cue nervous laughter* I'm just trying to go in with the mindset that this whole process is very arbitrary and that I should give it my all and hope for the best.
 
LangAddict94 said:
1 rejection and 1 WL, but I have five interviews coming up this month, so that should be fun... *cue nervous laughter* I'm just trying to go in with the mindset that this whole process is very arbitrary and that I should give it my all and hope for the best.
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5 March interviews? Lol whoa, good luck!
 
Good luck, everyone. I'm a 4th year medical student and got off 1/4 waitlists in the summer before school started. It's a horribly stressful process and I hope that you all can get at least one acceptance. It's still very early in the waitlist process so unfortunately you probably shouldn't expect anything to happen tomorrow or the next day. As someone who has been there, I know how difficult it can be. Please feel free to use me as a resource and let me know if you have any questions or if I can help with anything at all! I'm pulling for all of you.
 
bananafish94 said:
Good luck, everyone. I'm a 4th year medical student and got off 1/4 waitlists in the summer before school started. It's a horribly stressful process and I hope that you all can get at least one acceptance. It's still very early in the waitlist process so unfortunately you probably shouldn't expect anything to happen tomorrow or the next day. As someone who has been there, I know how difficult it can be. Please feel free to use me as a resource and let me know if you have any questions or if I can help with anything at all! I'm pulling for all of you.
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As someone who is about to enter waitlist season on 4 waitlists, you give me hope
 
just got put on my 5th waitlist today but really lowly ranked on the waitlist (soft R essentially). this process is really getting to me yall. love yall, prayers and best wishes for the others going through it i know how hard it is. much appreciate the kind and uplifting words that have been shared by others in this thread. its helping keep some perspective on what feels like a hopeless situation
 
SweetBurger said:
just got put on my 5th waitlist today but really lowly ranked on the waitlist (soft R essentially). this process is really getting to me yall. love yall, prayers and best wishes for the others going through it i know how hard it is. much appreciate the kind and uplifting words that have been shared by others in this thread. its helping keep some perspective on what feels like a hopeless situation
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I got a FEVAH, and the only prescription, is med school acceptances
 
Eight waitlists and one pending decision.... Perfect GPA, high MCAT, plenty of leadership and other stuff, interviews went great. I have no idea what more I have to do honestly. I'm feeling pretty dejected at this point and I don't even know where to start with applying to jobs for a potential gap year and reapplying. I noticed that most of the kids at my interviews already graduated college with impressive gap year creds and were from much more prestigious universities than my small liberal arts school. Idk im just tryna figure out what's wrong with my app to improve it but I just can't. This helpless feeling of uncertainty is killing me. This process is a crapshoot. There's no way in hell I thought I'd be in this position after getting 9 interviews. Oh well, good luck to everyone else
 
Gastrula44 said:
Eight waitlists and one pending decision.... Perfect GPA, high MCAT, plenty of leadership and other stuff, interviews went great. I have no idea what more I have to do honestly. I'm feeling pretty dejected at this point and I don't even know where to start with applying to jobs for a potential gap year and reapplying. I noticed that most of the kids at my interviews already graduated college with impressive gap year creds and were from much more prestigious universities than my small liberal arts school. Idk im just tryna figure out what's wrong with my app to improve it but I just can't. This helpless feeling of uncertainty is killing me. This process is a crapshoot. There's no way in hell I thought I'd be in this position after getting 9 interviews. Oh well, good luck to everyone else
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I kind of feel the same about the influence of undergrad prestige on cycle outcome, especially at T20s. I always believed that undergrad prestige does matter but more in an indirect way and would be minor in the grand scheme of things. This cycle has changed my views on that matter.
 
At the point where I dream about an A almost every night and it feels so realistic that I wake up disappointed and confused every morning. Seeing the social media posts of people getting in every day is agonizing. Getting grilled by family and friends about future plans is agonizing. Trying to finish the last semester of undergrad strong while replanning to take the mcat is agonizing. Still praying for a miracle while prepping to do this whole process ALL OVER AGAIN in just a couple months is agonizing. UGHHHHHHH. Feeling veery defeated and dejected

I almost would have preferred no interviews so at least I didnt get my hopes up
 
ExtraRoughWheatBread said:
I kind of feel the same about the influence of undergrad prestige on cycle outcome, especially at T20s. I always believed that undergrad prestige does matter but more in an indirect way and would be minor in the grand scheme of things. This cycle has changed my views on that matter.
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I feel ya
I can tell you from personal experience that undergrad prestige and GPA doesn’t mean jack squat.
 
RJ McReady said:
I feel ya
I can tell you from personal experience that undergrad prestige and GPA doesn’t mean jack squat.
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Not in the mood for this to fully blow up, but I have to strongly disagree on the undergrad prestige part, especially at the higher ranked medical schools. Might agree with you on the GPA part. I went into this thinking my GPA meant way more than it did.
 
coffee&scrubs said:
Not in the mood for this to fully blow up, but I have to strongly disagree on the undergrad prestige part, especially at the higher ranked medical schools. Might agree with you on the GPA part. I went into this thinking my GPA meant way more than it did.
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Not Trynna blow it up but I do wanna hear your thoughts on undergrad prestige
 
N=1
I’m fortunate and grateful to have an acceptance.
But my personal experience is that med schools cared less where I went or what my gpa was, even though I went to a (supposedly) “very prestigious” school, known for “grade deflation.” And I had a 3.95+ gpa, yet was waitlisted at multiple schools
 
RJ McReady said:
N=1
I’m fortunate and grateful to have an acceptance.
But my personal experience is that med schools cared less where I went or what my gpa was, even though I went to a (supposedly) “very prestigious” school, known for “grade deflation.” And I had a 3.95+ gpa, yet was waitlisted at multiple schools
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So, you've had lots of interviews, right? Isn't that by far the toughest cut? This IS the WL support thread, and you are still holding multiple WLs, so you don't know that you won't be receiving a few more As, but why would you say prestigious school and superlative stats don't matter when you've had many IIs? You do know that plenty of people with high stats don't get lots of IIs, don't you?
 
KnightDoc said:
So, you've had lots of interviews, right? Isn't that by far the toughest cut? This IS the WL support thread, and you are still holding multiple WLs, so you don't know that you won't be receiving a few more As, but why would you say prestigious school and superlative stats don't matter when you've had many IIs? You do know that plenty of people with high stats don't get lots of IIs, don't you?
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Yes I realize what thread I’m in.
My only point is that this whole process is a complete crapshoot and applicants have no idea what a particular school might be looking for Or the reasons they do anything.
Some of my interviewers have told me that they’d be lucky to have me at their school, and I’ve been rejected or waitlisted.
My experience has been that once you’re granted an interview it’s a crapshoot at that point.
Or maybe I’m a bad interviewer...
I don’t think I am but what the hell do I know.
 
RJ McReady said:
Yes I realize what thread I’m in.
My only point is that this whole process is a complete crapshoot and applicants have no idea what a particular school might be looking for Or the reasons they do anything.
Some of my interviewers have told me that they’d be lucky to have me at their school, and I’ve been rejected or waitlisted.
My experience has been that once you’re granted an interview it’s a crapshoot at that point.
Or maybe I’m a bad interviewer...
I don’t think I am but what the hell do I know.
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It’s a crapshoot, you aren’t a bad interviewer. If you got 5 R’s out of 5 II’s, then the Interview is the problem
 
RJ McReady said:
Yes I realize what thread I’m in.
My only point is that this whole process is a complete crapshoot and applicants have no idea what a particular school might be looking for Or the reasons they do anything.
Some of my interviewers have told me that they’d be lucky to have me at their school, and I’ve been rejected or waitlisted.
My experience has been that once you’re granted an interview it’s a crapshoot at that point.
Or maybe I’m a bad interviewer...
I don’t think I am but what the hell do I know.
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Yeah, and I have no idea about your interviewing skills or simple lack of luck, so I didn't want to go there. I was just trying to say that if you had a lot of interviews, which were no doubt deserved based on what you posted about your school and GPA (and I'm sure also based on all the other good stuff in your app), you really couldn't say that school and GPA don't mean jack. I'm sure you're right about luck playing a role after the interview, but the vast majority of people are eliminated BEFORE the interview, so just getting the interview is a big deal. Since you went to a "good" school, have a "good" GPA, and cleared the bar of getting the interviews, you can't say those things didn't matter.

You can say that after the interview, school and GPA alone are not enough to carry you over the finish line, and this is to be expected. If it were not the case, why bother conducting interviews at all, if people with somewhat lower GPAs coming from somewhat less impressive schools don't have any chance?

The bottom line is that people like you are statistically much more likely to receive interviews than the rest of the pool, and you did receive them. After that, you're right, there is a subjective element of randomness to who gets an A, but you seem to be anticipating the worst, and you might end up being right, but I really think it's still early, especially with multiple reports of schools being very conservative with As since the traffic rules changed last year. It's very possible one or more of your WLs will convert to As, and I wouldn't dismiss the possibility until at least a few weeks after 4/30.
 
sun_flower580 said:
At the point where I dream about an A almost every night and it feels so realistic that I wake up disappointed and confused every morning. Seeing the social media posts of people getting in every day is agonizing. Getting grilled by family and friends about future plans is agonizing. Trying to finish the last semester of undergrad strong while replanning to take the mcat is agonizing. Still praying for a miracle while prepping to do this whole process ALL OVER AGAIN in just a couple months is agonizing. UGHHHHHHH. Feeling veery defeated and dejected

I almost would have preferred no interviews so at least I didnt get my hopes up
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Right there with you, friend. Only received 1 interview and was waitlisted (my top choice IS school, and I’m an undergrad there). Keep your head up, a lot of us are in this together!! One day we’ll be able to look back and think about how happy we were that we didn’t give up (not that it makes it suck any less now, but, we will all be great doctors one day) 🙂
 
Sucky Limes said:
Right there with you, friend. Only received 1 interview and was waitlisted (my top choice IS school, and I’m an undergrad there). Keep your head up, a lot of us are in this together!! One day we’ll be able to look back and think about how happy we were that we didn’t give up (not that it makes it suck any less now, but, we will all be great doctors one day) 🙂
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Man this sucks so much : ( . Keep your head up too! I really hope it works out for all of us :/
 
Does anyone have any thoughts on if there'll be less WL movement this year (as there seemed to be last year due to the change in traffic rules)?
 
hydro flask said:
Does anyone have any thoughts on if there'll be less WL movement this year (as there seemed to be last year due to the change in traffic rules)?
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I heard there should be more WL movement this year if anything. Mainly because last year many schools overbooked their class, so this year they’re using the WL more liberally to prevent that from happening again
 
aayz345 said:
I heard there should be more WL movement this year if anything. Mainly because last year many schools overbooked their class, so this year they’re using the WL more liberally to prevent that from happening again
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I'm also interested to see if we'll see any noticeable differences in WL trends this year, depending on the school. I assume that students who might've chosen more cheaper schools and/or those closer to home may be more motivated to attend the higher ranked ones given the Step 1 change. Although I was quite surprised - I attended an interview a few days after the news broke, and not many interviewees seemed to be aware of the change.
 
aayz345 said:
I heard there should be more WL movement this year if anything. Mainly because last year many schools overbooked their class, so this year they’re using the WL more liberally to prevent that from happening again
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They said there would be more WL movement last year too for the same reason though--that schools would be "flying blind" and would use the WL more to avoid overbooking their classes. But the exact opposite happened. Oh well, here's to hoping there is more WL movement this year! One of my schools has already started pulling from their WL, which is 1 month earlier than they started pulling last year.
 
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