Admission

[premedelsie]

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Hello! I was wondering if anyone has insight into how an admissions committee operates. I realize it is different for every school. However, in general, how many people are on the committee? Also, is the interviewer present in the ADCOM meeting? Finally, is the ADCOM meetings the same with closed file interviews?

 

[GoSpursGo]

it is different for every school.

This.

Honestly it's impossible to generalize because different schools prioritize different things and give different attributes different amounts of weight.

 

[gyngyn]

You can read about the general requirements in Standard 10: lcme functions and structure of a medical school - Google Search

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

I think it is pretty standard for a couple people to read the file at most schools preinterview. Usually more people vote post interview at the adcom meeting so anything negative in your file is likely to have more weight at this stage (law of large numbers. It’s much more likely for 2 Adcoms to be fine with a red flag than 20.)

 

[Goro]

Hello! I was wondering if anyone has insight into how an admissions committee operates. I realize it is different for every school. However, in general, how many people are on the committee? Also, is the interviewer present in the ADCOM meeting? Finally, is the ADCOM meetings the same with closed file interviews?

Read my post on Admissions, behind the curtain

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Hello! I was wondering if anyone has insight into how an admissions committee operates. I realize it is different for every school. However, in general, how many people are on the committee? Also, is the interviewer present in the ADCOM meeting? Finally, is the ADCOM meetings the same with closed file interviews?

Yes. End of message.

 

[PhD_to_DO]

As you said, its different for every school. And what they look for and weigh is different fir every school. No way to generalize. Your energy will be better spent putting forth the best application that you can for medical school admissions than trying to figure out how adcoms are made up ir do their work.

 

[LizzyM]

Every school is different and schools will change things up periodically so what was happening 5 or 10 years ago at a specific school might be different now.

The accrediting body for medical schools (LCME) does require that the decision to admit a specific applicant (or to waitlist them which is to say that they can be admitted if space is available) be made by a committee of faculty. How that is operationalized is going to be very school specific.

 

[LindaAccepted]

Hello! I was wondering if anyone has insight into how an admissions committee operates. I realize it is different for every school. However, in general, how many people are on the committee? Also, is the interviewer present in the ADCOM meeting? Finally, is the ADCOM meetings the same with closed file interviews?

On the Admissions Straight Talk podcast I frequently ask admissions directors, what's the process for evaluating applications and what are they looking for. There are some things in common and there are also difference in their processes. Usually 2-3 people review the file before they decide to interview, but it does vary. The interviewer(s) is not usually present when the decision is made, but it could happen that an individual whom you interviewed with is on the committee. Realize that even in this era of remote interviews some school have MMIs, and they were more common before COVID. If there are multiple interviewers, or multiple people reviewing the recording of your interview, it is highly unlikely that all will vote or that all who vote will have reviewed the recording.

Again it varies.