2021-2022 Rutgers, RWJ

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For those interviewing, did they tell us if the MMI is only scenarios or also asks some traditional questions too?
They’ll explain it in the pre-MMI session.

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Anyone else apply on day 1 and still receive radio silence?
 
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Hi, is there a check-in? I don’t have it written in my notes from the pre-interview session, and I don’t see it in the document they emailed. I also don’t see a button for it in the portal. Thanks!
 
Hi, is there a check-in? I don’t have it written in my notes from the pre-interview session, and I don’t see it in the document they emailed. I also don’t see a button for it in the portal. Thanks!
Nope. Just be 5 mins early to read your first prompt.
 
How do post-interview thank you notes work for this school? should we just upload them to the document upload tab of the portal? Or email the admissions office directly?
 
Nope. Just be 5 mins early to read your first prompt.
Hi, I just wanted to say thanks so much for your message!!! And you responded so quickly too!! I woke up at 7AM and checked everywhere for an 8AM check-in button like how I heard other schools had.

Your message let me KNOW I was okay, go back to sleep, and wake up way more calm and refreshed!

You’re awesome - thanks so much!!!
 
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Hi, I just wanted to say thanks so much for your message!!! And you responded so quickly too!! I woke up at 7AM and checked everywhere for an 8AM check-in button like how I heard other schools had.

Your message let me KNOW I was okay, go back to sleep, and wake up way more calm and refreshed!

You’re awesome - thanks so much!!!
Any time future classmate!
 
GUYS! Just got an II, but I didn't get an email! I just happened to log into my portal, and turns out I had gotten the invite on 10/11 but didn't receive any communication. Has this happened to anyone else? Luckily was able to still schedule, but nervous that I won't receive any of the future emails.
 
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Does RWJ send II's in batches or on an individual basis? Its been quiet here lol
 
GUYS! Just got an II, but I didn't get an email! I just happened to log into my portal, and turns out I had gotten the invite on 10/11 but didn't receive any communication. Has this happened to anyone else? Luckily was able to still schedule, but nervous that I won't receive any of the future emails.

My II was sent to spam. If yours was sent to spam it may have been deleted by now. Keep checking that folder!

Congrats!
 
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24 Days until Thanksgiving and still no interview invites from anywhere! Very spooky Halloween, I’m scared (Finished last secondary on 7/22)
 
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24 Days until Thanksgiving and still no interview invites from anywhere! Very spooky Halloween, I’m scared (Finished last secondary on 7/22)
Same. I got 4IIs last cycle and nothing so far this year despite submitting earlier
 
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So like are we screwed?
I think it is a bit early to be totally hopeless but I would start thinking in the back of your mind about reapplication and what you can do to improve your PS, activities or MCAT.

I don't wanna sugar coat and say it's early, it's the middle of the cycle but...people still get IIs until March and even April so hang in there!
 
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I think it is a bit early to be totally hopeless but I would start thinking in the back of your mind about reapplication and what you can do to improve your PS, activities or MCAT.

I don't wanna sugar coat and say it's early, it's the middle of the cycle but...people still get IIs until March and even April so hang in there!
This^^^^. At the risk of being repetitive, no, it's not early any longer, but it's also really not late.

The SDN so-called Thanksgiving Rule is a thing for a reason. If it was time to worry now, the Thanksgiving Rule would be the Halloween Rule. :) While it's understandable for over anxious pre-meds to jump the gun, there really is another month to go and, even then, it won't be over.

Even though IIs will continue to go out through next February or March, a majority of them will have gone out at many schools by the end of November, so that's a good time for people with nothing to start to think about a reapplication if they have not been doing so all along.
 
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Hey current M1 here - if you have any questions feel free to message! Paying it back from last year :)
Did you have a choice between New Brunswick and Newark? If so, what drove your choice?
 
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Did you have a choice between New Brunswick and Newark? If so, what drove your choice?
Two different schools. Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson is located in Piscataway/New Brunswick. Rutgers NJ Medical School is located in Newark.
 
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Two different schools. Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson is located in Piscataway/New Brunswick. Rutgers NJ Medical School is located in Newark.
Yes. Two different schools, but both Rutgers, both public MD schools, and both in NJ. I'm assuming they attract the same applicants, and was hoping @treebark101 might share what led to a choice, if indeed a choice was made.
 
Yes. Two different schools, but both Rutgers, both public MD schools, and both in NJ. I'm assuming they attract the same applicants, and was hoping @treebark101 might share what led to a choice, if indeed a choice was made.
for me it came down to where would i rather live, Newark or New Brunswick & as someone who is very averse to city life obviously ended up choosing NB. Granted back when I was applying there were still talks of a merger so didn't bother looking to see if there were any real differences between the schools
 
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Have any MD/PhD candidates who got interviewed in September still not heard back? I emailed asking about my status with no response.
 
Is anyone else currently sitting on 0 interview invites? Thanksgiving is in 12 days and I'm losing my mind o_O
:eek::sick:
 
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Is anyone else currently sitting on 0 interview invites? Thanksgiving is in 12 days and I'm losing my mind o_O
:eek::sick:
You'll probably receive more traction on a dedicated thread, like the one below, rather than a school specific one.

Also, you should keep in mind that you are not going to turn into a pumpkin on November 25th. It's just a rule of thumb, and a good time to start to think about maybe having to reapply.

It's the furthest thing from a deadline. IIs continue to go out after Thanksgiving, every single year. If you search, you will find many success stories from people who received their first IIs in December, January and February and ended up matriculating at those schools.

Losing your mind will not turn out to be productive. You are going to need it for the task at hand! :) Stop worrying about what you can't control. If you have meaningful updates, send them. Otherwise, focus on what you could be doing to generate a meaningful improvement, either for an update later this cycle, or for inclusion in a future application. Good luck!!

 
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Anyone else feel ghosted by this school? Haven't heard a peep since submitting my secondary in July. Incredibly sus admissions process at this school and NJMS
 
Anyone else feel ghosted by this school? Haven't heard a peep since submitting my secondary in July. Incredibly sus admissions process at this school and NJMS
They'll send an update at some point, this feeling of being ghosted has happened many more times than I'd like to admit but they'll get to your app eventually, trust bro
 
Can any current students privy to admissions comment on the minimum acceptable amount of clinical experience? I am well aware that there are rarely cutoffs or thresholds in admissions, but if there is a rough rule of thumb I would be curious to know.
 
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Is RWJ running slow? There hasn't been much II activity as of late, at least on this forum.
 
Wow, 4 IIs are a lot! Any idea why you weren't able to turn them into an A?
Competition? There were 62,432 applicants last cycle for 22,665 seats in US MD programs. That's as good a reason as any.

4 IIs are pretty good, but it's not 10 or 15, which are "a lot." There were plenty of people with far more than 4 IIs last cycle who ended up on a lot of WLs and never got the call due to the crazy number of applicants, which led to less than expected WL movement at many schools last cycle.

Edit: Based on all the negative reactions, I just want to clarify -- I never meant to imply that 4 IIs wasn't great. I only meant to say that, given how competitive last cycle was, it was not enough, for many, to come close to guaranteeing an A. Under the circumstances, not receiving an A from 4 IIs might very well have been entirely out of the person's control. That's all. I never meant to disparage 4 IIs, which is apparently how everyone is reading it. My bad!!
 
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are you kidding me!!! How is it fair that someone complete in October already gets an II when people like me who have been waiting patiently since June get radio silence and feel ghosted. This is truly not fair what the adcom’s are doing
 
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are you kidding me!!! How is it fair that someone complete in October already gets an II when people like me who have been waiting patiently since June get radio silence and feel ghosted. This is truly not fair what the adcom’s are doing
I mean, not everyone gets an invite. That's the point. Med schools select students they want to invite.

Also, not all schools review apps in order; sometimes, it's GPA, MCAT, date completed, etc.
 
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are you kidding me!!! How is it fair that someone complete in October already gets an II when people like me who have been waiting patiently since June get radio silence and feel ghosted. This is truly not fair what the adcom’s are doing
Chin up brother/sister, this process is long and it's stratified as well. This school's not rolling so just gotta be patient. I'm right there with you
 
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are you kidding me!!! How is it fair that someone complete in October already gets an II when people like me who have been waiting patiently since June get radio silence and feel ghosted. This is truly not fair what the adcom’s are doing
Med school admissions is a rat hole, my friend, I wish you the absolute best this cycle. :)
 
I mean, not everyone gets an invite. That's the point. Med schools select students they want to invite.

Also, not all schools review apps in order; sometimes, it's GPA, MCAT, date completed, etc.
I understand that, but at least have the balls to send me a rejection
 
I understand that, but at least have the balls to send me a rejection
Yeah. Welcome to admissions in the sellers' market. Some schools are really transparent and user friendly. Most are not.

It's not about balls. It's about their convenience. Most schools just don't send out Rs at least until they are done sending out IIs, because they might want to go back to some people they already passed over if the rest of the pool isn't as strong as they thought.

And because they don't have to. Some actually never send Rs out. Schools go through this to identify people they want to invite into their world. Believe it or not, most of them really don't care about everyone else, or the stress they are under, or doing anything to mitigate it. It's not like, knowing they act this way, people aren't going to apply next cycle.

Try not to stress yourself out. As others have said, the cycle goes from July through the following June. People can and do receive IIs all the way through March and sometimes even April, and those IIs often turn into As. Beyond that, the only productive thing to do while waiting is think about ways to improve for a potential reapplication.
 
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Competition? There were 62,432 applicants last cycle for 22,665 seats in US MD programs. That's as good a reason as any.

4 IIs are pretty good, but it's not 10 or 15, which are "a lot." There were plenty of people with far more than 4 IIs last cycle who ended up on a lot of WLs and never got the call due to the crazy number of applicants, which led to less than expected WL movement at many schools last cycle.

Edit: Based on all the negative reactions, I just want to clarify -- I never meant to imply that 4 IIs wasn't great. I only meant to say that, given how competitive last cycle was, it was not enough, for many, to come close to guaranteeing an A. Under the circumstances, not receiving an A from 4 IIs might very well have been entirely out of the person's control. That's all. I never meant to disparage 4 IIs, which is apparently how everyone is reading it. My bad!!
Idk why you’re getting negative reactions for this. Unfortunately, I’m not the only reapplicant in this kind of position. The completion last year was intense and while I’ll be the first to admit that one of my interviews went quite poorly imo, even my best interviews didn’t convert to an A. I got feedback from an adcom member before reapplying and their only comments were to apply early and that the unfortunate reality is that luck is a factor in the admissions process. The only thing we can all do is be supportive of each other and wait until we hear something from these schools.
 
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Idk why you’re getting negative reactions for this. Unfortunately, I’m not the only reapplicant in this kind of position. The completion last year was intense and while I’ll be the first to admit that one of my interviews went quite poorly imo, even my best interviews didn’t convert to an A. I got feedback from an adcom member before reapplying and their only comments were to apply early and that the unfortunate reality is that luck is a factor in the admissions process. The only thing we can all do is be supportive of each other and wait until we hear something from these schools.
I know! Sometimes I'm quite tone deaf, and upon rereading, I saw how it could be taken to mean that I was saying 4 IIs wasn't good, which wasn't what I meant at all.

What I was trying to say was that it's rude to ask you what they think you did wrong to have 4 IIs and zero As, because I saw first hand people with 3-7 IIs not get called off any WLs last cycle, who did absolutely nothing wrong. It was a brutal cycle, with a violent 18% surge in applicants.

The good news is that, this cycle, the early reports of an additional 5% increase were wrong (even if @gonnif is going to be among the last to admit it :)). Multiple reports from sources as varied as Michigan, Vanderbilt, all of the Texas schools, NYU and a few others point to a reduction in applicants of 5-10% this cycle, which is going to make it measurably easier this time around as compared to last, although by no means easy. An increase of 10% from 2 years ago if far better than the alternative of a 25% increase, which is what it looked like back in July.

Based on early reports from my friends in a similar position to yours, you are going to have very different results this time around. It really is still early.
 
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I hope so, I’m still waiting for my first II. Dodged a couple of R waves though so that’s nice lol
I know! Sometimes I'm quite tone deaf, and upon rereading, I saw how it could be taken to mean that I was saying 4 IIs wasn't good, which wasn't what I meant at all.

What I was trying to say was that it's rude to ask you what they think you did wrong to have 4 IIs and zero As, because I saw first hand people with 3-7 IIs not get called off any WLs last cycle, who did absolutely nothing wrong. It was a brutal cycle, with a violent 18% surge in applicants.

The good news is that, this cycle, the early reports of an additional 5% increase were wrong (even if @gonnif is going to be among the last to admit it :)). Multiple reports from sources as varied as Michigan, Vanderbilt, all of the Texas schools, NYU and a few others point to a reduction in applicants of 5-10% this cycle, which is going to make it measurably easier this time around as compared to last, although by no means easy. An increase of 10% from 2 years ago if far better than the alternative of a 25% increase, which is what it looked like back in July.

Based on early reports from my friends in a similar position to yours, you are going to have very different results this time around. It really is still early.
 
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Hi, can someone give me information about the Pre-MMI session? Are you on camera for this, and do you need to answer any questions? I need to take it from a public place due to my work schedule. How long is it and what do they review during the session?
 
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