4.0/40 rejected everywhere :o( Not sure what to do?

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
Institutional Actions
Criminal background check
Bad letters of recommendation (pretty unlikely to get rejected pre-secondary)
Pathologic personal statement (pretty unlikely to get rejected pre-secondary)
Vast over estimation of how "good" your ECs are and/or poor representation of these on paper (pretty unlikely to get rejected pre-secondary)

I really appreciate your bluntness, honestly... But I don't have any of these...unless there's a bad LOR? And I don't think my ECs are over the top amazing... admittedly they're pretty standard... but I did commit to researching and volunteering for several years and my personal statement wasn't pathological.... in one secondary where they asked my biggest obstical, I might have been a bit too forthcoming... but this was not part of the other applications.
 
Last edited:
This is what scares me... I feel the same way... and I have no clue what it could be... I would have at least thought waitlist... somewhere? But just rejection... I guess I need to do some detective work, but most people I've already tried to contact are making me feel a bit like a pariah...

Best of luck rooting out the "fatal" issue, if there is one. I think that, if even a few schools on your list are willing to offer feedback, that should be enough to help you find the fatal flaw. Something like, "You bragged about being an elephant poacher in your personal statement" or "You shouldn't have had Charles Manson write you a rec letter." It would be a shame to have your brilliant mind (judging by mcat/gpa here) to go to waste so hopefully you can find the issue and correct it!
 
Best of luck rooting out the "fatal" issue, if there is one. I think that, if even a few schools on your list are willing to offer feedback, that should be enough to help you find the fatal flaw. Something like, "You bragged about being an elephant poacher in your personal statement" or "You shouldn't have had Charles Manson write you a rec letter." It would be a shame to have your brilliant mind (judging by mcat/gpa here) to go to waste so hopefully you can find the issue and correct it!
University of Michigan Admissions tweeted last year about a candidate who had too much "I". Maybe have some "external" folks read through your essays/PS, to see if it is too focused on "you", and not about your contributions to a team, etc. Just throwing out ideas for you.
 
I really appreciate your bluntness, honestly... But I don't have any of these...unless there's a bad LOR? And I don't think my ECs are over the top amazing... admittedly there pretty standard... but I did commit to researching and volunteering for several years and my personal statement wasn't pathological.... in one secondary (Duke) where they asked my biggest obstical, I might have been a bit too forthcoming... but this was not part of the other applications.

I would double check on the IAs and criminal background checks. It would be incredibly rare, but not completely unheard of for there to be something that got put on your record by accident or without your knowledge. We had a case the year I was applying that someone had an IA on their application because the person in the dean's office wrote down the wrong student ID number and someone else's IA got onto their record. How you check on those depends on your school, but your dean's office is a good starting point.

Duke likes forthcoming. There is a reason they have their secondaries the way that they are. In my experience, albeit n<10, they tend to like honest, well written and provoking answers to their secondaries. Both Duke and HMS will look hard at "high risk, high reward" students.

My take home point is, do NOT fall into the trap of starting to think about "luck". It is easy to do. Your secondary pattern and straight rejections are not in line with simply being "unlucky".
 
OP, I had another post written for you, but we need to make sure that your whole story is on the table so we can help you. You wrote this last fall (emphasis mine):
No, and I thought my recommendations were going to be pretty good too. So now I'm confused/nervous. I'm a re-applicant... are we reviewed later?
You had applied already before this cycle? I was ready to leave room for the luck side of things, but two unsuccessful cycles with your stats would be clear evidence of a hidden factor.
 
What did you focus on in your PS? Did you fall into the hackneyed "wanted to be a doctor since childhood" trope? Did you have anybody read it and provide comments? Was it grammatically correct? Was the concentration of ellipses as high as in your comments?
 
My take home point is, do NOT fall into the trap of starting to think about "luck"
I agree...I feel something tangible is probably wrong with my application (either something missing or some red-flag) but I just don't know what it could be, which for me is the most frustrating part because if I knew what was wrong, I start working towards fixing it.
 
You had applied already before this cycle? I was ready to leave room for the luck side of things, but two unsuccessful cycles with your stats would be clear evidence of a hidden factor.
Yes, I am a re-applicant...
 
Last edited:
What does your personals statement look like?

This is not a medical school application, but I once reviewed a personal statement for an accomplished high school student who wanted to only apply to the Ivy's. However, his statement was a total self congratulatory catalogue. He ignored advice to tone it down and actually provide some introspection. It didn't go well for him.
 
What did you focus on in your PS?
I focused on an interaction with a patient I had while volunteering... I tried not to focus too much on me and more on the difference I hope to make through medicine... I read and re-read and re-read, to make sure there were no grammatical errors... and had other people read it as while, including several of the doctors that I've shadowed and they seemed to like it?
 
I focused on an interaction with a patient I had while volunteering... I tried not to focus too much on me and more on the difference I hope to make through medicine... I read and re-read and re-read, to make sure there were no grammatical errors... and had other people read it as while, including several of the doctors that I've shadowed and they seemed to like it?

People "liking" your statement shows me that they were just being nice or not sure what they were being asked to do.
People should be giving you feedback like, "After reading your statement, I better understood your motivations, but it made me think you were very shy about talking about your accomplisments."

Finally, "I tried not to focus too much on me" tells me that you missed the whole point of the personal statement. It is ALL about you. How you present YOU will make all the difference. The rest is just a medical novella and zzzz.
 
Yes, I am a re-applicant... this is because I got a 28 on my first MCAT and did not receive my score until after I submitted my AMCAS... once I got back my score, I thought that it was unrealistic to expect much success that cycle... so I didn't continue with the applications that cycle and studied up.... a lot... and got a 40... and re-applied. Which initially I thought would hurt me, but my interviewers at a couple of schools mentioned how it was "great" to have such a big jump in score
Thank you for explaining.

This does mean that not only were you technically a reapplicant, your MCAT is somewhat weaker than advertised. Schools see all of the scores. Whether or not they actually average them, they will see that you got a 40 and a 28, with whatever story they want to say about it. It could help us to know, too, why you initially scored relatively low. Perhaps this is part of the overall story.
 
People "liking" your statement shows me that they were just being nice or not sure what they were being asked to do.
People should be giving you feedback like, "After reading your statement, I better understood your motivations, but it made me think you were very shy about talking about your accomplisments."

Finally, "I tried not to focus too much on me" tells me that you missed the whole point of the personal statement. It is ALL about you. How you present YOU will make all the difference. The rest is just a medical novella and zzzz.

Haha this poor OP. Above, she is being told that an overly self-focused PS is harmful. And now s/he is being told it should be all about her. S/he probably feels like a ping pong ball haha.
 
I'd say that applying to Washington and UNC as an OOS'er (and not receiving a secondary) represents a poor choice of school selection. At the minimum, I can say you could have researched your school list better.

That doesn't rule out a red flag though - odds favor an HMS interviewee getting into some other Top 20 program. Did you spend all your time/energy on a few secondaries to the detriment of others?

Okay, wrote post before OP's full disclosure (28, re-app). Would be supremely helpful to include that stuff in the first post.
 
Haha this poor OP. Above, she is being told that an overly self-focused PS is harmful. And now s/he is being told it should be all about her. S/he probably feels like a ping pong ball haha.
Ha ha, true. The title of this thread is perfect pre-allo bait, the mythical 4.0/40/shutout. For OP, it can't be easy to be caught in this whirlwind of advice.
 
Whether or not they actually average them, they will see that you got a 40 and a 28, with whatever story they want to say about it. It could help us to know, too, why you initially scored relatively low. Perhaps this is part of the overall story

I think I scored low the first time because I had trouble moving on if I didn't know the answer... after working on my test taking skills / accepting that I couldn't know the answer to everything, I did much better
 
What does your personals statement look like?

This is not a medical school application, but I once reviewed a personal statement for an accomplished high school student who wanted to only apply to the Ivy's. However, his statement was a total self congratulatory catalogue. He ignored advice to tone it down and actually provide some introspection. It didn't go well for him.

I tried very hard to not make the personal statement sound self-centered... it was more about interactions with patients and how they made me want to contribute to medicine / I was wary of not using "I" to much and not making it just a re-telling of my resume. I thought it was pretty good... I would post it, but I think that might be excessive.
 
I tried very hard to not make the personal statement sound self-centered... it was more about interactions with patients and how they made me want to contribute to medicine / I was wary of not using "I" to much and not making it just a re-telling of my resume. I thought it was pretty good... I would post it, but I think that might be excessive.
You do not need to post it but I recommend you have atleast 3 people read through it other than yourself. 1. A faculty member at your school, 2. Your sibling or close friend, 3. random stranger on SDN (possibly one of the residents if they are willing). This way you can get 3 different perspectives on your essay and each person should scrutinize it rather than saying it was good.
 
Haha this poor OP. Above, she is being told that an overly self-focused PS is harmful. And now s/he is being told it should be all about her. S/he probably feels like a ping pong ball haha.

Yes. Well I did say, how she presented herself would make all the difference, but you can't go and write a personal statement that is not about you. There are ways to discuss your reasoning and motivations without focusing particularly on accomplishments.
 
Haha this poor OP. Above, she is being told that an overly self-focused PS is harmful. And now s/he is being told it should be all about her. S/he probably feels like a ping pong ball haha.
I like to hear what other poeple think? It's better than my parents... who seem to think the main reason I wasn't offered positions where I interviewed was because of "how I looked at my interview" they are very aesthetically oriented... when I was initially preparing for my interview, my dad didn't suggest I practice interviewing... he suggested I hire a make-up artist...then my advisor from school said before I interviewed that I would need to go in the room and be confident, I can be somewhat reserverd, but I knew this and thus made an extra effort to not exude timidity (without seeming obnoxious).
 
I don't think it was the first MCAT score. I also re-took the MCAT, and it wasn't a problem.

Maybe it was your secondary essays? If a school feels that your response to their secondary questions are rushed, they might feel you are only applying there because you need a "safety". (I had an obvious typo in my Duke secondary that I found too late. It probably contributed to my pre-interview rejection, since I interviewed at plenty of schools similar to Duke.)

Are you currently affiliated with a university? I would take your personal statement and secondary essays to your school's "Writing Center". Tell them you are a senior applying for medical school, and you need help with your application essays. The people there are very good at giving honest feedback. Often times, when we think our own writing is a home run, the essay actually comes off as creepy, insincere, or cliche to a third-party audience.
 
Anyway, OP, I recommend you apply to more than just the list you previously selected. It reads like the top 25 schools list with the exception of a few places.

Why not a few more middle of the road places with solid programs?

Also 15 schools is a little light. Advisors at my undergrad quoted a statistic that our successful applicants applied approximately 22 schools. That was about 10 or 11 years ago and at a Top... errh 1 or 2 ... (Princeton sux! =p) undergrad.

So.... go figure what it's like now.
 
1) Poor school selection - sorry, but this just isn't a smart list of schools to apply to.

2) Poor writing skills - are you a native English speaker? Do you write well? This is the most significant thing I can think of that might be in your control. If your application is poorly written it's likely to just be tossed out.

3) As others said, something else - perhaps an IA or something.

The story doesn't make sense, and when it doesn't make sense there's likely something that's being missed. You're a reapplicant but that in and of itself doesn't really explain how things turned out. Did you apply early? Did you have people look over your application (or at least your PS) before you submitted it? People are generally poor judges of their own app and writing, so I'm guessing your app isn't as strong as you think it is. With all due respect, based on your school list I'm questioning your judgment in this regard, and that's what I'm going to chock this up to.

And yet, you got interviews at three great schools. A true mystery, Watson.
 
I like to hear what other poeple think? It's better than my parents... who seem to think the main reason I wasn't offered positions where I interviewed was because of "how I looked at my interview" they are very aesthetically oriented... when I was initially preparing for my interview, my dad didn't suggest I practice interviewing... he suggested I hire a make-up artist...then my advisor from school said before I interviewed that I would need to go in the room and be confident, I can be somewhat reserverd, but I knew this and thus made an extra effort to not exude timidity (without seeming obnoxious).
Lets put it out of the way that it was not your interviews since you had tons of pre interview rejections. So now you need to assess the application. Did you have the required courses for schools? Did you pay the application/secondary fee? Did you have good EC and explain them well? Did your PS and secondaries seem to say something unique about you? And did your LOR writers write you good letters. July/August is not too late even though June would have been better to submit.
 
No it is not "unrecoverable".

But the 28 doesn't simply disappear, and applying with that school list as a reapplicant with a 28 is insane.

Help me to understand... and please remember that I am just looking for help without hurtful comments... I've just been rejected for like the 10th time in the last two weeks...
 
Regarding the MCAT of 28 before the 40 came along:

Even for schools that look at the average, a 34 isn't that bad. And this is to rule out the schools that look only at the most recent score, or the schools that would acknowledge and value the drastic upward trend.
 
Help me to understand... and please remember that I am just looking for help without hurtful comments... I've just been rejected for like the 10th time in the last two weeks...

No one has been hurtful on this thread. We are tough but very straightforward and constructive in our suggestions. When you submit your scores, schools see both 40 and 28. 40 looks great, but they will always wonder why you had a 28 and why you messed up the first time. That's just how it is - adcoms are still humans. Nitpicky, hypercritical humans with too much power if you ask me. So the analogy is: Do you want to buy a used BMW or a new BMW? Not all BMWs are equal, and when a school can get any BMW it wants, think which it's going to take?

It would be way more realistic to look at your app and school list with someone who has a lot of experience in this. Have them help you figure out where to apply to as well as how to improve your app.
 
Help me to understand... and please remember that I am just looking for help without hurtful comments... I've just been rejected for like the 10th time in the last two weeks...

I'm not trying to be hurtful. I do find it frustrating when posters do this where you let people go on for 50 posts and you keep saying you have no other red flags you can think of, then you bust out a "oh I'm a reapplicant with a 28". It makes me wonder what else you aren't telling us.

But let's move on from that. Here are the things I think need to be addressed:

-School list: insane. That was simply an insane list of schools to apply to, where the closest thing you have to "Safety" schools are top-caliber schools. You can maybe argue that Georgetown is, but they notoriously get a ton of applications due to the undergrad prestige spilling over. You need to apply to a LOT more schools and a much broader range.

-LORS: Definitely a concern there is something in these LORs that is turning schools off.

-Writing style: again, very very few people get rejected on the basis of a personal statement, it has to be truly awful/scary for that to happen. But your posts here raise concern for your writing style. I know it's not entirely fair to judge internet posts for writing skill, but it's still a concern.

-Maturity: IMHO even if you are a couple of years out of school, your posts here reek of immaturity. I don't mean this to be offensive, but it does raise concerns for issues of immaturity to be coming out in your application somehow either through LORs or your writing, and raises concern for interviews as well.

Again - none of this seems to fully explain the wide swath of pre-secondary rejections. But those are the big concerns off the top of my head. I agree with the advice to wait until May or so and then try to contact as many of these schools admissions offices and request a phone meeting with a dean for feedback and advice. It may not work at many/most of them but if even one will give you the time of day it might clarify things.
 
Writing style: again, very very few people get rejected on the basis of a personal statement, it has to be truly awful/scary for that to happen. But your posts here raise concern for your writing style. I know it's not entirely fair to judge internet posts for writing skill, but it's still a concern

Few people get rejected on the basis of a few mistakes or naive statement, but I'd say it can be a deciding factor if you're applying to the list she's applying to. Additionally, if it's written the way Panda MD joked around, I'd be scared too.
 
OP, did I miss it or did you ever tell us your state of residence?

If you aren't a resident of WWAMI or North Carolina, then your pre-secondary rejections (which were only at UW and UNC) are no big deal. If you are, then it would be telling.

And in any case, you should apply to all the schools where you are in-state next time around. (Please don't say you're an international student after all of this.)
 
Honestly, sometimes it IS just luck. You and I have similar stats, but if I had applied with your school list, I'd also be sitting at zero acceptances. You should consider adding:

University of Chicago
University of Michigan
Washington University in St Louis (I can't tell if the Washington you listed is WashU or U of Washington)
Columbia University
University of Pennsylvania
 
-Writing style: again, very very few people get rejected on the basis of a personal statement, it has to be truly awful/scary for that to happen. But your posts here raise concern for your writing style. I know it's not entirely fair to judge internet posts for writing skill, but it's still a concern.


Don't jump to conclusions. My forum-writing-style is miles away from my scholarly-writing-style and several more miles away from my novel-writing-style.

Same thing about maturity. The maturity of someone's posts on a forum =/= the maturity of them in real life. (Of course the 2 can be correlated, but that is not always so.)
 
OP, did I miss it or did you ever tell us your state of residence?

If you aren't a resident of WWAMI or North Carolina, then your pre-secondary rejections (which were only at UW and UNC) are no big deal. If you are, then it would be telling.

And in any case, you should apply to all the schools where you are in-state next time around. (Please don't say you're an international student after all of this.)

TBH, I really wanted to get out of my state for medical school.
 
Last edited:
Do y'all think it would be a bad idea to post my PS? I just want to be as transparent as possible. Without being foolish.
 
Honestly, sometimes it IS just luck. You and I have similar stats, but if I had applied with your school list, I'd also be sitting at zero acceptances. You should consider adding:

University of Chicago
University of Michigan
Washington University in St Louis (I can't tell if the Washington you listed is WashU or U of Washington)
Columbia University
University of Pennsylvania
Definitely add these other top tiers just in case but the real help is going to be adding mid tiers and explaining why you really want to go there. Mid tiers are much more apt to give high-stat apps a chance if you can give them a valid reason why you want to go there (geographical area, family/friends in the area, etc.)
 
Is there any hard evidence to back this up? Not trying to dispute, more so curious.
No, that's definitely not true. CA schools are different from other state schools in that all of them are great and very competitive, but there's still in-state preference for sure. Davis's last incoming class was 99:3 IS:OOS, Irvine was 94:10, UCLA was 154:21, San Diego was 105:20, and UCSF was 135:29 despite having exactly the same number of IS and OOS applications. Maybe that's less in-state bias than in other states, but it's definitely still there.
 
BTW, I agree with mimelim. There is obviously something that is a major red flag if 12/15 schools auto-reject you. Call every single school and try to get some info.

To add a couple to his list on the first page:
-Does a google search for your name bring up 16 pages of arrest records for someone who happens to have the same name?
-Is your facebook page full of hate/inappropriate jokes/unprofessional nonsense?
-Did you perhaps list something inappropriate or worrisome in your ECs? Like smoking pot, recreational sword swallowing, stealing candy from babies, or playing too many video games?
 
Outright rejections are rare. Waitlisting -> rejection is far more common, based upon my experience.

That's true. Of course it varies between schools. Of the three, I can only speak for Harvard, but I know HMS offers few waitlist positions and many rejections.

Ultimately I think the bevy of pre-II rejections indicates a problem with the application and not interviews...yes, it may be both!
 
Concur, even an avg of 345 is really good. BUT, timing appears to be the issue. if most of the schools saw only the 28, then perhaps that's what led to the multiple pre-interview rejections.



Regarding the MCAT of 28 before the 40 came along:

Even for schools that look at the average, a 34 isn't that bad. And this is to rule out the schools that look only at the most recent score, or the schools that would acknowledge and value the drastic upward trend.
 
Concur, even an avg of 345 is really good. BUT, timing appears to be the issue. if most of the schools saw only the 28, then perhaps that's what led to the multiple pre-interview rejections.

I think the 28 may have been from the previous cycle. OP is a reapplicant.
 
Does a google search for your name bring up 16 pages of arrest records for someone who happens to have the same name?
-Is your facebook page full of hate/inappropriate jokes/unprofessional nonsense?
-Did you perhaps list something inappropriate or worrisome in your ECs? Like smoking pot, recreational sword swallowing, stealing candy from babies, or playing too many video games?
I have a very unique name, I doubt there is someone with my name.
I don't have a facebook page.
No worrisome ECs ...
 
Last edited:
When did you complete primaries/secondaries? How much time elapsed?

That's a factor I don't think has been brought up yet (maybe I'm wrong...).
 
Top