2021-2022 UC San Francisco

BU Medical Sciences
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+1 secondary from 7/27. Was in my "promotions" gmail tab...okay. OOS.
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Primary submitted 6/27, no secondary yet

IS, meh GPA at 3.66, higher (but irrelevant) MCAT (520)

But also, re-applicant who received a secondary last year with a not-so-good primary app (mainly PS). Took them a long time to get me through last time (well over a month), so I'd say sit back and relax - you'll get yours.
 
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^ I think they havent released in about a week probably compling to a large reach instead of sending it out by small waves.
 
IS reapplicant. Applied first day AMCAS opened... Kinda getting concerned that I'm not going to get a secondary here
 
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Does anyone happen to know if MCAT scores are blinded for secondary screening only? Or would this apply for interview invites as well? The info on their site is kinda vague
 
djmd98 said:
Does anyone happen to know if MCAT scores are blinded for secondary screening only? Or would this apply for interview invites as well? The info on their site is kinda vague
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It has already been discussed ad nauseam. This is fairly unambiguous. All applicants who make it to the interview stage will have made it there without an MCAT score being viewed throughout the entire admissions process up until that point.
 
^Yea thats the point of holisitic. MCAT is not the determining factor some people were privilleged with parents to pay thousands for prep while others cant afford it so cant compare scores as well. I think its a good thing although there are some flaws pretty sure they know what there doing because even without it they still interview students who end up having high/low mcat scores even it was blinded.
 
wavyboys21 said:
^Yea thats the point of holisitic. MCAT is not the determining factor some people were privilleged with parents to pay thousands for prep while others cant afford it so cant compare scores as well. I think its a good thing although there are some flaws pretty sure they know what there doing because even without it they still interview students who end up having high/low mcat scores even it was blinded.
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Actually, holistic means looking at everything, including stats. This is taking it a step further, by not even considering MCATs, at least up to the II.
 
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Oh yea true true you are right!! But there are soecocnomic differences to getting prep and people who have to work to provide their family. Im pretty sure in their policy they look at rigor of academic work in context of your school. So that should make up for it as well!
 
mywayhighway59 said:
Yeah, it's an overall subjective and imperfect process.
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A professor and mentor of mine (from a well known medical school) shared that admissions is as close to shooting darts at a dartboard - blindfolded-- in 100mph winds... and yes, he's on an admissions committee 🙂
 
What are you guys including in your optional essay? I'm writing a diversity type essay but I'm not sure if people are including a why us?
 
wavyboys21 said:
^Yea thats the point of holisitic. MCAT is not the determining factor some people were privilleged with parents to pay thousands for prep while others cant afford it so cant compare scores as well. I think its a good thing although there are some flaws pretty sure they know what there doing because even without it they still interview students who end up having high/low mcat scores even it was blinded.
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I also want to offer a different POV for someone like me who is super non-trad and did a DIY post-bacc while working full time. I studied my butt off to prove that I have the scientific competencies through my MCAT. Without my MCAT score, my app is not convincing that I've met the science requirements and I honestly am not hopeful that I will get a secondary from UCSF 🙁
 
^Totally understand and feel your point. I guess I didnt see it from that perspective I mainly looked at it from side as a current student perspective.
 
Shazthepaws said:
I also want to offer a different POV for someone like me who is super non-trad and did a DIY post-bacc while working full time. I studied my butt off to prove that I have the scientific competencies through my MCAT. Without my MCAT score, my app is not convincing that I've met the science requirements and I honestly am not hopeful that I will get a secondary from UCSF 🙁
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100% right there with you. I agree with the other poster that there are obvious issues with wealth and MCAT scores, but as someone who studied while working a full time job and a part time job on weekends and got a good score, I view it as a significant accomplishment that I prefer not be discounted, especially when my undergrad GPA might not stack up despite a successful postbacc. I'm fine with discounting metrics, but let's discount GPA and MCAT equally if we do that, as neither is a good indicator of performance as a physician.
 
iHawk_MD said:
100% right there with you. I agree with the other poster that there are obvious issues with wealth and MCAT scores, but as someone who studied while working a full time job and a part time job on weekends and got a good score, I view it as a significant accomplishment that I prefer not be discounted, especially when my undergrad GPA might not stack up despite a successful postbacc. I'm fine with discounting metrics, but let's discount GPA and MCAT equally if we do that, as neither is a good indicator of performance as a physician.
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No, the MCAT is a fair measure of content knowledge and critical thinking ability. The GPA is basically a measure of how easy your courses were.
 
skg99 said:
No, the MCAT is a fair measure of content knowledge and critical thinking ability. The GPA is basically a measure of how easy your courses were.
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I think both have issues. I attended one of the most notorious undergrads for grade deflation, but I was also lazy, and my GPA ended up in the gutter. Years later, I studied hard for the MCAT and succeeded in getting a good score while working two jobs, but I do recognize that people who have financial advantages can succeed with more ease. I remember reading reddit and seeing people talk about studying from 8am to 8pm, and it blew my mind that their whole life for months was nothing but studying for the MCAT. I personally don't think paying for MCAT courses is all that helpful, but I didn't take one so I can't be sure.

Overall though, I agree that I would rather compare applicants via a standardized test than an unstandardized, confounded metric. But I can't say I have an unbiased opinion on that as my MCAT is much stronger than my GPA lol.
 
skg99 said:
No, the MCAT is a fair measure of content knowledge and critical thinking ability. The GPA is basically a measure of how easy your courses were.
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As the 4.0 student in classes with 2.7 averages, I will wholly disagree
 
2021-2022-NonTrad said:
I am thankful to have both. But I worked hard for both. It is fairly dismissive to just equate GPA to “how easy were your classes.”
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The most infuriating thing about this process is that its not a meritocracy. Some people work hard to get where they are, some people had it handed to them. And the latter invalidate the work of the former. All we have is some hope that ADCOMs can suss this out to some extent.
 
iHawk_MD said:
The most infuriating thing about this process is that its not a meritocracy. Some people work hard to get where they are, some people had it handed to them. And the latter invalidate the work of the former. All we have is some hope that ADCOMs can suss this out to some extent.
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Had a small conversation with LizzyM a couple weeks ago in which she was of the opinion that students with good grades from unranked state schools were inherently less academically prepared than at a flagship school as she felt competitiveness of college admissions was a good substitute for quality of academic preparation.

TL;dr - nah, most don’t care
 
2021-2022-NonTrad said:
Had a small conversation with LizzyM a couple weeks ago in which she was of the opinion that students with good grades from unranked state schools were inherently less academically prepared than at a flagship school as she felt competitiveness of college admissions was a good substitute for quality of academic preparation.

TL;dr - nah, most don’t care
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As someone that went to a pretty highly ranked school, this is some of the most elitist nonsense I have ever read and is what perpetuates the cycle of elitism in this process. It’s rather sad.
 
2021-2022-NonTrad said:
I am thankful to have both. But I worked hard for both. It is fairly dismissive to just equate GPA to “how easy were your classes.”
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A friend from my state school is applying with a 3.9 495, and I know kids at my school with a 3.2 520+ lmao. GPA can demonstrate a good work ethic, but it does not necessarily represent an understanding of the material, and cannot be compared across professors, majors, and schools. I think MCAT, Research, Leadership, and Service are more demonstrative of an individual's merit.
 
2021-2022-NonTrad said:
I am thankful to have both. But I worked hard for both. It is fairly dismissive to just equate GPA to “how easy were your classes.”
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I'm not trying to discredit anyone's hard work, but it would be intellectually dishonest to call it a good metric for the comparison of diverse candidates.
 
On another note,

does anyone know when UCSF generally starts sending out their first IIs and/or when their interview season begins/ends?
 
Shazthepaws said:
I also want to offer a different POV for someone like me who is super non-trad and did a DIY post-bacc while working full time. I studied my butt off to prove that I have the scientific competencies through my MCAT. Without my MCAT score, my app is not convincing that I've met the science requirements and I honestly am not hopeful that I will get a secondary from UCSF 🙁
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with an LM of 82, you must still have a great GPA no?
 
skg99 said:
No, the MCAT is a fair measure of content knowledge and critical thinking ability. The GPA is basically a measure of how easy your courses were.
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Both have their downsides, especially for the MCAT where schools actually discriminate between 90th+ percentile scores and even 95th+ percentile scores as if the difference is actually meaningful. I'm pretty sure everyone knows how much luck is involved in scoring above the 515-518 range....

Additionally, the length of the MCAT makes it pretty **** as a "standardized" measure, in my opinion. Each section maybe tests 20% of the content you actually study, and if you happen to get some low yield material that you didn't study, you're F'd.

I took the exam twice in relatively quick succession without changing study methods (515 ---> 527, Canada 🙁 ) , and this is largely because for both CP and BB, the vast majority of my sections were about 5 low yield concepts that I knew like the back of my hand. In fact for BB I actually had 2 passages that were directly related to the research I do. I'm 1 year out of undergrad and was a CS major, so CP and BB usually kicked my ass, but went from 127-128's on practice to 132's on the real just because of the content.

My GPA is kind of bad though due to CS courses at a difficult uni, so maybe it was just divine intervention. Who knows.
 
Shorjand_U said:
Both have their downsides, especially for the MCAT where schools actually discriminate between 90th+ percentile scores and even 95th+ percentile scores as if the difference is actually meaningful. I'm pretty sure everyone knows how much luck is involved in scoring above the 515-518 range....

Additionally, the length of the MCAT makes it pretty **** as a "standardized" measure, in my opinion. Each section maybe tests 20% of the content you actually study, and if you happen to get some low yield material that you didn't study, you're F'd.

My FL average was about 12 points below my actual score (515 ---> 527) , and this is largely because for both CP and BB, the vast majority of my sections were about 5 low yield concepts that I knew like the back of my hand. In fact for BB I actually had 2 passages that were directly related to the research I do. I'm 1 year out of undergrad and was a CS major, so CP and BB usually kicked my ass, but went from 127-128's on practice to 132's on the real just because of the content.

My GPA is kind of bad though due to CS courses at a difficult uni, so maybe it was just divine intervention. Who knows.
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Yes but you’re not the majority. Most people score around their average FL score, and if someone is consistently scoring above a 520 it can’t be attributed to just luck.
 
premed7890 said:
Yes but you’re not the majority. Most people score around their average FL score, and if someone is consistently scoring above a 520 it can’t be attributed to just luck.
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Sure but the majority of applicants, especially to top schools, come from well-known universities where GPA and course load can be evaluated pretty effectively and accurately based on previous applicant pools and the uni itself.

It's not like without the MCAT now UCSF will be interviewing everyone with a 4.0 from snoozetown.
 
premed7890 said:
Yes but you’re not the majority. Most people score around their average FL score, and if someone is consistently scoring above a 520 it can’t be attributed to just luck.
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"Just at or about FL score" usually is a +/- 3 points which if your FL average was around a 519, let's say, is a massive 516 - 522 window on test day, which CAN and IS mostly luck and mental based. And we all know how big of a difference a 516 is to a 522.

Also the people with 520+ FL averages are in the far, far minority. Sure maybe some people can snag one exam, but the vast majority of people scoring 520+ do not have 520+ average lmao.
 
WhatsUpDoc824 said:
Evaluating either GPA or MCAT only will obviously have holes. When using both in admissions decisions, it gives a full picture which is why I wish UCSF would also consider MCAT.
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What weirds me out is that they say it's due to COVID reasons. I know some schools said this last year because tests were canceled but I thought that wasn't as much of a problem for 2021. Or are they saying that people had to deal with extra barriers from the pandemic? I consider myself disadvantaged and I actually feel like I benefited from the extra time at home to study (I obviously know that's not the case for everyone though). Like if they thought it was an unfair metric, why didn't they say that and permanently remove it?
 
Shorjand_U said:
Sure but the majority of applicants, especially to top schools, come from well-known universities where GPA and course load can be evaluated pretty effectively and accurately based on previous applicant pools and the uni itself.

It's not like without the MCAT now UCSF will be interviewing everyone with a 4.0 from snoozetown.
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I have a 4.0 from "snoozetown" because I could only attend snoozetown due to financial need. I truly believe that I am as academically competent as any fancy-university graduate. I showed that with my MCAT score, but USCF is not going to see that. I know my case is far from typical, but my point is that everyone has a different story and making generalizations like that just makes the whole approach LESS "holistic" IMO.
 
Shazthepaws said:
I have a 4.0 from "snoozetown" because I could only attend snoozetown due to financial need. I truly believe that I am as academically competent as any fancy-university graduate. I showed that with my MCAT score, but USCF is not going to see that. I know my case is far from typical, but my point is that everyone has a different story and making generalizations like that just makes the whole approach LESS "holistic" IMO.
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Strong agree. Removing metrics does not yield holistic evaluations - placing those metrics in context does. Sure, there are 2,000 other applicants with my score or higher…but if it says anything about the limited resources I had available to me, it is the highest MCAT score from my snoozetown school in the last decade.

It is the same argument towards Step 1 P/F, but what makes MCAT different is that it is MEANT to stratify us.
 
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