2021-2022 Minnesota, Twin Cities

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nemolemo said:
Can anyone who already attended the interview comment on what it was like? Is it just MMI or is there a traditional interview portion? Thank you!!
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There's a 20 min faculty interview as well as an MMI portion that lasts about 1hr and 15min.
 
Okay, knowledge drop since I'm procrastinating studying for midterms. Current first year at UMN-TC. Knowledge compiled from a wide range of different students spanning several years.

Things UMN-TC likes (in no particular order):

1. Commitment to Minnesota, not necessarily commitment to UMN. They want to hear why you care about the state of Minnesota, and more importantly, why you care about the individuals/communities in Minnesota. As with any part of this application, you need to demonstrate your commitment to Minnesota, not just tell them "yeah, MN is pretty cool." How have you served your local community and why did you choose to serve that community instead of doing other things? I framed most of my secondary responses and interview answers in this light - "here is the impact I made on my community, team, etc and here is why I wanted to do that activity."

For OOS applicants, I don't have much advice for you on this, other than to say UMN-TC does aim to have about 20% of its class from OOS each year. I was told that ~20% brings "a nice balance" to the class, so there is hope for OOS applicants. Maybe focus on how you have served underserved communities local to you?

2. Clinical Experience. UMN-TC has like 80% of its medical students who have had paid clinical experience prior to matriculation. That makes UMN-TC like the 2nd or 3rd medical school in terms of percent of students with paid clinical experience in the country. I can't confirm they like any particular type of clinical experience more than others, but several instructors have mentioned how much they enjoy having former scribes as students. Notably, the majority of my classmates were not scribes though (did CNA, clinical research assistants, MA, etc), so don't sweat it if you weren't a scribe.

I think the larger part is that want medical students who have been actively involved in our current medical system and can talk about the success and failures they have seen. UMN-TC makes improving the medical system a large part of their curriculum. For example, UMN and its clinics were one of the first in the country to challenge the research on race-based eGFRs and initially received a lot of hate for it (one professor even mentioned they got death threats from the public over holding a panel discussion on why race based eGFRs weren't evidence based). Turns out in the interval years the original studies promoting race-based eGFRs have been re-reviewed and both the National Kidney Foundation and the American Society of Nephrology have agreed that the original studies were flawed and there is no actual evidence supporting different kidney function by race. UMN has set their sights on several other similar issues and are working to push change in those areas as well. Medical students have been the instigator for these changes in almost every case.

That being said, if you're the type of individual who feels the need to tactlessly scream your political beliefs at everyone and make yourself the center of attention in every topic remotely political, UMN probably isn't the place for you. I've been amazed at how well-reasoned and nuanced many of my classmates views are, even those I don't agree with the final conclusions they come to There are a lot of individuals here who genuinely want to improve things and that means they want to have honest discussions on how we can make changes that actually benefit our patients. It's been such a refreshing experience, especially given the political climate in the US everywhere else.

3. Diversity in all its forms. This extends far beyond race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. UMN expects you to have some good takes on this topic, not the "well I'm an URM so let me in" or the "yeah I'm an ORM, but I worked with lots of underserved communities." Why do you value diversity? Think of some experiences where you were thankful to have someone by your side with completely different life experiences, perspective, or other similar things.

4. Probably the most important is being a team player. UMN has a huge emphasis on their class being a cohesive and supportive group. This is medicine - administrators, nurses, patients, etc are going to beat you and your fellow physicians down over the years. Suicide and mental health crises among physicians are a huge issue. The medical field needs physicians who are going to be there for each other. There is no one else who understands exactly what we go through, both in medical school and as full physicians, so we need to be there for each other and support each other. This was a huge part of my application and it was received wildly well at my interview talking about how I've been there for my teammates/classmates/etc in the past.

I'll try to check back in and answer questions people have., but I'm off to actually study for a bit!
 
Got my interview invite on 10/4! In-state applicant with MCAT and GPA all in their ranges. Submitted my secondary on 7/24. Anyone that's interviewed already... any comments to share with a nervous (and so excited!) applicant? I saw that it was part standard and part MMI, and I'm wondering how conversational it felt vs. grilling with questions.

Thanks and best of luck to everyone!
 
kth0707 said:
Got my interview invite on 10/4! In-state applicant with MCAT and GPA all in their ranges. Submitted my secondary on 7/24. Anyone that's interviewed already... any comments to share with a nervous (and so excited!) applicant? I saw that it was part standard and part MMI, and I'm wondering how conversational it felt vs. grilling with questions.

Thanks and best of luck to everyone!
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The "standard" interview is really short and definitely more conversational. The interviewer will have a few key things they want to hear from you, but it definitely isn't "getting grilled." The MMI portion is a little more difficult in my opinion, but I didn't find it intimidating at all. You have plenty of time to sit with the questions and think of how you want to approach them, and the interview environment was as comfortable as it could have been! Good luck 🙂
 
I interviewed this week.

Can't give many specifics due to their NDA, but I will say that if you are interviewing here, be prepared to talk about diversity/equity/inclusion quite a bit.

Staff also said that their ADCOM starts meeting "next week" and that we should expect a 6-8 week turnaround, although they mentioned it "could" be faster (but don't count on it).
 
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Are y'all hopeful that they'll be sending out decisions by the 6 week mark? I interviewed late September on one of the first interview days and was told 6-8 weeks.
 
namtohoemalf said:
Are y'all hopeful that they'll be sending out decisions by the 6 week mark? I interviewed late September on one of the first interview days and was told 6-8 weeks.
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Hopeful, but for my mental health, not relying on it. I interviewed last week and thinking/hoping to hear back before they break for winter break in December. Since you interviewed earlier, hoping you hear back much sooner!
 
namtohoemalf said:
Are y'all hopeful that they'll be sending out decisions by the 6 week mark? I interviewed late September on one of the first interview days and was told 6-8 weeks.
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If the adcom is starting to meet this week I think it's possible that we'll hear back at the 6 week mark (10/29). but honestly who knows haha
 
Should I worry about getting a 3 on the SJT. I know that this med school isn’t requiring us to even take it but is this a bad indicator if I was to come on the waitlist
 
Did everyone get this? I feel like i'm being trolled lol thought it was an ii.

fe255505d75d281e0124beb3dcacc8e9.png
 
Got the R just now (a Sunday evening). OOS with no ties, 3.8/508. This one hurts but I’m going to pretend they yield protected me thinking I’m going to get in to my (neighboring) state school 🤣. Best of luck to everyone who is still in!
 
Hey guys! New to this thread as it's my first time applying to UMN-TC. I received my interview invitation today! I noticed people were interested in timeliness so I decided to share mine:

Application verified: 9/14 (took a late MCAT and didn't have my score until Sept)
Submitted secondary: 9/29
II invite: 10/25

I am IS and an alumni from TC. MCAT and GPA averages are within the range (lower side due to some crappy undergrad classes from freshman year) but last 4 semesters of undergrad were around 3.7 and post-bacc was 4.0.

I hope you guys hear stuff back soon!
 
boo1113 said:
I am IS and was complete 8/1, well within the 2 week timeline they prefer for submitting secondaries. MCAT and GPA are both above their averages. I communicated my commitment to practicing medicine in MN. I have not heard anything from them. I know that the admissions committee is extremely busy and that there are many factors that go into when invites are sent. However, because I haven't heard anything, I am starting to think that something might have happened to my application. I am thinking of reaching out to admissions, although I'm not sure if it will be of any use at this point. Thoughts?
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I am in the same exact boat! I was complete about a week later though. I think they are just going a wee bit slow.
 
boo1113 said:
I am IS and was complete 8/1, well within the 2 week timeline they prefer for submitting secondaries. MCAT and GPA are both above their averages. I communicated my commitment to practicing medicine in MN. I have not heard anything from them. I know that the admissions committee is extremely busy and that there are many factors that go into when invites are sent. However, because I haven't heard anything, I am starting to think that something might have happened to my application. I am thinking of reaching out to admissions, although I'm not sure if it will be of any use at this point. Thoughts?
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I don't think emailing them will help your application. Odds are they won't respond. Hang in there - the wait is tough!
 
boo1113 said:
I am IS and was complete 8/1, well within the 2 week timeline they prefer for submitting secondaries. MCAT and GPA are both above their averages. I communicated my commitment to practicing medicine in MN. I have not heard anything from them. I know that the admissions committee is extremely busy and that there are many factors that go into when invites are sent. However, because I haven't heard anything, I am starting to think that something might have happened to my application. I am thinking of reaching out to admissions, although I'm not sure if it will be of any use at this point. Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Just because you have good stats and are IS doesn't mean that you will automatically rate an early response. It's quite possible that you won't get an II at all. The first thing you need to do is remove any and all expectations that you think you have concerning if you will get an II.

Second, don't let the neuroticism get to you. Everyone sees horror stories on SDN/Reddit and thinks that it's highly likely that something happened to their application, but the reality is that they almost certainly have your application and just haven't decided to respond to you yet.

Schools really don't like overthinking students prodding them about their application status. It will most likely hurt you if you do contact them about this. Keep yourself busy instead. As soon as you get that II, you'll look back and feel stupid about how much you were overthinking things.
 
LinkingFatez said:
Did everyone get this? I feel like i'm being trolled lol thought it was an ii.

fe255505d75d281e0124beb3dcacc8e9.png
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I actually didn't get this, which makes me a little nervous. OOS complete 8/25. I also only applied to the Twin Cities campus, so I'm hoping that's why.
 
WiscoWillis said:
I actually didn't get this, which makes me a little nervous. OOS complete 8/25. I also only applied to the Twin Cities campus, so I'm hoping that's why.
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I wouldn’t overthink this. These types of things rarely (if ever) mean anything about the cycle.
 
Any news lately? It's been 6 weeks since the first interview day if I'm correct. The wait is killing me 😩
 
Rocky1976$ said:
Should I worry about getting a 3 on the SJT. I know that this med school isn’t requiring us to even take it but is this a bad indicator if I was to come on the waitlist
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I absolutely bombed the SJT (nailed the CASPER though, despite them both supposedly measuring the same thing...) and got into UMN-TC.

I don't have confirmation of this, but the SJT is almost certainly not being used in admissions and instead is just another data point they use to track medical students. That is, medical schools don't actually know if the SJT actually predicts individuals who will be better medical students or better physicians. Therefore, they probably are going to accept a wide range of scores and see how students with different scores vary in medical school - do higher SJT scores correlate with students less likely to have disciplinary action related to ethics? Less likely to fail out of medical school? Less likely to discriminate? Nothing at all? Only once the predictive power of the SJT is actually known will it start to be used in admissions.

This same thing happened/is still happening with the CASPER so it wouldn't surprise me that schools are approaching the SJT in the same way.
WiscoWillis said:
I actually didn't get this, which makes me a little nervous. OOS complete 8/25. I also only applied to the Twin Cities campus, so I'm hoping that's why.
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One million percent unrelated to your strength as an applicant, don't worry. UMN never desires to be cryptic towards applicants or medical students. I know we all like to think that medical school admissions teams are sitting in a dark room somewhere thinking of the next way to mess with applicants, but they really aren't. I will agree the wording of the email and design is a pretty poor choice.

Also, for those who haven't seen it, here is UMN-TC's full review process: Twin Cities Application Review Process
 
namtohoemalf said:
Any news lately? It's been 6 weeks since the first interview day if I'm correct. The wait is killing me 😩
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Yeah, hoping to hear something this week. I was told 6-8 weeks at my interview. No news is good news I guess...
 
I finished my application 7/23 and I am in state. I still haven't gotten an interview invite or rejected. At this point if we haven't heard back, is this bad news?
 
ostrich07 said:
I interview next Thursday (11/4), but thank you! Any advice?
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Besides some standard questions that you should prepare an answer for, I would say just be yourself on your interview day. It’s a pretty relaxed atmosphere. The MMIs are more conversational than I thought they would be. Good luck!
 
Maxthecat said:
Besides some standard questions that you should prepare an answer for, I would say just be yourself on your interview day. It’s a pretty relaxed atmosphere. The MMIs are more conversational than I thought they would be. Good luck!
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Awesome, I didn't know how to prepare for the MMIs so that's good to hear they're conversational!
 
interviewed 9/16 as well and didn't get a call :/ really sad because I thought this was my best chance of any school. awaiting the inevitable waitlist/reject email soon 🙁(
 
I don't know how it worked for everyone else, but I interviewed 9/21 (OOS) and never received a call, but I did receive an acceptance email a few days after others got calls. So, if you're an early interviewed and haven't been called yet, there's still hope!
 
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