20th school?

[pianola]

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I'm debating on whether or not I should add a 20th school to my list. Does anyone have any suggestions? A school with a short secondary application might be appreciated at this point in the cycle.

Any level of competitiveness should be more or less ok. Options I've considered are UVA, UMich, and NYU. I'd like to be in an urban location; other than that, the options are wide open 😉.

Thanks for your help!! I always appreciate good advice.
~pianola~

PS. Please refrain from negatively commenting on the list I have already made as the fees have been sent.

 

[MilkmanAl]

How about Florida State? UVA and NYU are also great choices for you.

 

[pianola]

How about Florida State? UVA and NYU are also great choices for you.

Thanks for your input 🙂 I appreciate it very much. FSU I've been on the fence about -- I'm not big on rural medicine and I believe they have a mandatory clinical rotation in rural med (need to check MSAR to be sure, though). Maybe I will go for UVA or NYU. I'll keep thinking on it.

Any other thoughts?

 

[UVAbme2009]

You know UVA is far from urban, right?

 

[flip26]

Michigan looks for high MCATs, screens out OOS below something like 37...probably just throwing away your $ here.

You have your 3 state schools, but your list is otherwise pretty top heavy. If you are adding another school, maybe you should look for another "safety" school instead of another reach? Maybe EVMS? Or NYMC?

 

[MilkmanAl]

Michigan looks for high MCATs, screens out OOS below something like 3

Where did you get this info? Michigan sent me mailers out the ass with a 35. If you want to go there, apply. Call the admissions office if you're concerned about it.

 

[pianola]

You know UVA is far from urban, right?

I've been through Charlottesville before, yes. I didn't mean to indicate that it was NYC or anything. I just meant that besides the three options I was considering, I'm generally looking for an urban environment. Thanks for the input.

 

[flip26]

Where did you get this info? Michigan sent me mailers out the ass with a 35. If you want to go there, apply. Call the admissions office if you're concerned about it.

I read it here on SDN last year. They have a very high MCAT screen for OOS. Certainly higher than 35. There may even be an mp3 or transcript floating around with a discussion by the director of admissions talking about it...

 

[pianola]

Michigan looks for high MCATs, screens out OOS below something like 37...probably just throwing away your $ here.

You have your 3 state schools, but your list is otherwise pretty top heavy. If you are adding another school, maybe you should look for another "safety" school instead of another reach? Maybe EVMS? Or NYMC?

UMich has an 2009-2010 MSAR reported MCAT of ~37 (probably rounded up from a decimal) and they take more than half of their class from out of state. Presumably some of the OOS people accepted have a 36.

I indicated in my original post that I am looking for good schools at any level of competitiveness. I am satisfied with the number of "less-difficult-to-get-into" schools I have on my list (I won't use the word "safety", myself.) However, I will consider any school if there are compelling reasons.

Thank you for your suggestions! I'll definitely look into them.

 

[pianola]

Where did you get this info? Michigan sent me mailers out the ass with a 35. If you want to go there, apply. Call the admissions office if you're concerned about it.

Maybe I will call the admissions office to make sure. I highly doubt that they'd "screen out" a 35 or 36. Not to say that either you or I would "definitely" make it in, but I think we'd be worthy of consideration, for sure.

EDIT: Just called the school and they informed me that they have no MCAT screen whatsoever.

 

[flip26]

Maybe I will call the admissions office to make sure. I highly doubt that they'd "screen out" a 35 or 36. Not to say that either you or I would "definitely" make it in, but I think we'd be worthy of consideration, for sure.

Here is where I got it, but I now see it is not a "screen" but the auto-invite level:

54321 (Jun 13, 2007 7:09:37 PM)
Will there be automatic interview invites again this year and what are the cutoffs for in-state and out of state?

RobertRuizMichigan (Jun 13, 2007 7:11:04 PM)
54321-yes, Not sure on the numbers-so don't quote me as they are going up since our applicant pool was up 20% last year and we anticipate another 20% jump this year. ...so I'm thinking 3.8/ 38 for non-residents and 3.75/36 for Michigan Residents. While the auto interview is nice it only applies to about 15% of all our interview offers

So clearly it is not a screen in the usual sense of the word, but this should give an OOS applicant some pause if he doesn't have both a high MCAT and high GPA.

And I had a friend last year who was Michigan instate with a 3.8+ / 36 who did not get an interview invite...same person interviewed at tons of places like Harvard, Yale, etc., got accepted at a bunch of schools, too...make what you want of this, but UM clearly has a penchant for very high numbers, for both instate and out of state applicants...

 

[flip26]

Maybe I will call the admissions office to make sure. I highly doubt that they'd "screen out" a 35 or 36. Not to say that either you or I would "definitely" make it in, but I think we'd be worthy of consideration, for sure.

EDIT: Just called the school and they informed me that they have no MCAT screen whatsoever.

Did they mention the auto-invite screen level this year? See my other post above for the info on it from last year...

 

[pianola]

OK, well good to know. Although I don't quite understand why your friend, a Michigan resident, was not offered an automatic invite based on your claim (?) I'm applying to a bunch of very-hard-to-get-into schools and I'm not sure that UMich is necessarily more difficult than Harvard or Mayo or Hopkins. I mean, it's probably similarly impossible to get into, right?

I think I could live with not getting an 'automatic' invite 😉

But anyway, I'm still debating UMichigan. I have a friend who studies music there and she just says it's very, very cold all the time. I realize I'll probably be studying most of my time in med school -- but that's all the more reason for me to want nice weather when I'm on very precious relaxation time, right?

 

[pianola]

Did they mention the auto-invite screen level this year? See my other post above for the info on it from last year...

I asked the woman on the phone if UMich had any sort of MCAT screen and she said "no"...the auto-invite might be just for early applicants or something. (At this point, I wouldn't be an "early" applicant, for sure).

I mean, I'm just repeating what she told me. She might have omitted the "auto-invite" screen.

 

[flip26]

OK, well good to know. Although I don't quite understand why your friend, a Michigan resident, was not offered an automatic invite based on your claim (?)

I agree it is puzzling, but those auto-invite screen levels were preliminary, offered by the director of admissions "off the cuff" during some interactive online session last summer, and evidently the auto-invite level was even higher last year than he forecast. My friend was completely bummed to not even get a home state school interview, I can tell you that, but he is starting at a top 20 school next month, so no need to feel too sorry for him...

Ann Arbor is very cold and gray during the winter. Miserable. And "winter" there starts in November and runs until April...

 

[flip26]

I asked the woman on the phone if UMich had any sort of MCAT screen and she said "no"...the auto-invite might be just for early applicants or something. (At this point, I wouldn't be an "early" applicant, for sure).

I don't think it is only for early applicants. I think that if you hit their screen numbers, you get an auto-invite email...it would be interesting to know how high that is this year...

Here is an interesting thread from last cycle where people discussed the UM auto-invite, and the first poster on the thread clearly had better than the auto-invite levels but was still not offered an interview, and he was a very strong OOS applicant who ended up with some very nice acceptances:

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=490092

 

[pianola]

he was a very strong OOS applicant who ended up with some very nice acceptances:

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=490092

I'm sure Michigan rejects plenty of very qualified OOS and IS applicants.



Anyway, at this point, I'm looking for advice about schools besides Michigan (because as I said earlier, I'm still on the fence as to whether I would actually want to go if accepted. Criteria besides selectivity are important to me in the process).



Any other thoughts, SDNers? I won't bump the thread TOO many more times after this.