Am I too late? overqualified?

[mdia]

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I've been rejected from all of the MSTP programs that I have applied (ie, not even invited for an interview).

I have a M.S. in biomedical engineering from ivy-league school.

I am working full-time as an engineer now.

I have a MCAT score of 34, 4 research experiences (2 were NSF-funded), undergraduate GPA of 3.6, graduate GPA of 4.0

I want to research clinical biomedical spectroscopy.

Does anybody know why I'm being rejected? My possible explanations are as follows:

1) I didn't submit my secondary's until mid-October. Am I too late?

2) I have a M.S. degree. Will this deter the committee from offering an MSTP fellowship? I have heard that some MSTP do not accept graduate students.

3) Am I too focused on the Biomedical Engineering, and not medicine???



I've applied to the following. Does anybody know if the program SPECIFICALLY will not accept graduate students into the MSTP program?

Harvard
Columbia
Penn
Yale
Johns Hopkins
UCSF
UCLA
USC
Chicago
Washington University
Duke
UNC
Brown
University of Washington
NYU
Pitt
Case



Wierdness.....

 

[gstrub]

Where did you apply? If you only applied to MSTP programs, start applying to less competitive programs. Your numbers are good. I applied with a MS in human genetics, lots of people do, and it will help you to have research experience rather than hurt you. Don't restrict yourself to only MSTP...look at all the MD/PhD programs. You would certainly get interviews somewhere...provided you don't have any major red flags.

Also, maybe don't come off as only being interested in one narrow aspect of medicine...remember the combined degree will train you in basic science, not clinical research, so you need to demonstrate an interest in basic science.

 

[xanthines]

Are you currently in grad school? It doesn't sound like you are, but some of your wording is confusing me a little. Most schools are reluctant to take students currently pursuing a graduate degree that won't be finished by the time you start med school. Not saying that it can't or doesn't happen, though...

You're GPA and MCAT are fine and are not holding you back.

1. Are you a U.S. citizen or green card holder? NIH grants don't normally fund foreign students. This means the school has to cough up their own money, which some schools actually do.

2. What does your "4 research experiences" mean? MSTPs like to know that you know what research is like and that you know what you're getting into.

3. Do your essays articulate why you want to go the MSTP route and relating back to #2, do they convince people that you know what research is like?

4. Are your letters of recommendation actually recommending you? Maybe someone doesn't quite agree with your career plans. Either that, or your letter writers aren't very good at writing letters. They can't be generic "mdia is a good student" letters. They need to convey the sense that someone experienced in biomedical research thinks you're great and that programs are idiots for not accepting you. Maybe not quite that strong... 🙂

Basically, something in your application is turning programs off. My money's on the essays or the letters.

-X

P.S. You actually received a letter of rejection from every school you applied to, right? If you're still waiting to hear, it's a bit early to be in total despair.

 

[xanthines]

...and another thing: you're not overqualified. 🙂

-X

 

[hatePreMeds]

I'm in the same position with stats like yours (maybe a bit better, but your from a better school!!). I submitted my secondaries in early Oct. and I'm still waiting to hear back. You shouldn't worry about Chicago and UNC cause they look at all the files at once in November and December. Which makes ALOT more sense than the rolling admission. Why would you have deadlines later in the year?? (pointing my finger at Michigan) 😡
UM!! I want my money back!!

 

[mdia]

i'm applied to Cornell, thinking that they offered a biomedical engineering Ph.D., but they do not. Zoinks!!!

 

[DogFaceMedic]

Don't take this too hard, but...
We had one applicant to our program that was flat rejected because he was such an arrogant...
A friend from undergrad days said he only wanted to do research and was not all that thrilled to work with patients -- he was rejected 3 yrs in a row.

 

[bottles999]

I would agree with the above statements about the likeliness being contents of your essays as the primary reason. However, you need to have some clinical volunteer/shadowing of some sort. In addition, your very late in getting your secondaries in as well. That doesnt help your case at all. Any of those three items could be part of the problem.

As for overqualified... There is no such thing. I can attest one can get in, I am in my 1st year MD-PhD and do have an MSEE with quite a bit of work experience. so its possible for grad students to get in. A lil dose of humbleness wouldnt hurt either.

Good luck

 

[CCLCMer]

You should call the schools that rejected you and ask if you can get some advice on how to improve your app. See if there's some kind of pattern. I agree that if you're not an American, or if you're a lot older than most applicants (like in your 30s), that could be a big part of it too. You should probably apply more broadly anyway, not only to top MSTPs. And yeah, I have to agree with the last couple of people, you do come across sounding kind of arrogant when you ask if you're overqualified just because you have your MS. We have several people with PhDs getting into CCLCM (which is a five year medical research or MD/MS program). If Case and CCLCM don't think that people with PhDs are overqualified for an MD/MS program, I think it's probably safe to say that your MS doesn't make you overqualified for an MD/PhD program. 😎

 

[BozoSparky]

Did you leave a phd program with a masters?

(Sorry for not reading all the previous posts if you already answered this.)

Have a good letter from your research colleagues?

 

[Sinfekl]

...and another thing: you're not overqualified. 🙂

-X

Yea, I had a chuckle about that. I know what you meant, but it was still funny. At least during interview season, everything is about wording.

 

[mudphudwannabe]

In the realm of MD/PhD applicants, your application is actually fairly middle of the road - nothing that would guarantee an acceptance at the very prestigious schools you have applied to. I'm not trying to be harsh, just honest -- this is coming from a mediocre former applicant herself. A masters does not make your overqualified, and it would certainly not count against you unless, as BozoSparky mentioned, you left a PhD program with a masters because of a problem related to your research or academics. I would also make sure there is nothing funny going on with your letters -- are you sure each person who wrote you a letter would give you a glowing recommendation? Letters from your research mentors are especially important. Also, is there anything strange going on with your academic record? Something like academic misconduct (plagiarism, cheating, etc) could certainly pose a problem.

Barring any of the above, I suspect the problem is that you haven't shown a serious interest in medicine. You have to have some shadowing and/or volunteer clinical experience, and you have to play up your interest in medicine in your essays.

 

[Neuronix]

1. Are you a U.S. citizen or green card holder? NIH grants don't normally fund foreign students. This means the school has to cough up their own money, which some schools actually do.

Great question. Even in the case of schools that take foreign students, the students have almost always done undergrad here. Does this apply to the op I wonder?

Did you leave a phd program with a masters?

Also a good question. A bad letter could be sinking the op too. Another thing I don't understand is, the op is asking if schools don't take graduate students. To the op: are you in a PhD program now? If so, it's true they probably will not take you.

If Case and CCLCM don't think that people with PhDs are overqualified for an MD/MS program, I think it's probably safe to say that your MS doesn't make you overqualified for an MD/PhD program.

I agree with CCLCMer that you should make some phone calls to programs that rejected you and see if you can get them to tell you the reason. Some programs refuse to discuss this, some may give you BS reasons, but it could be illuminating, especially if you try again.

What I don't understand so much is the quote. This is off-topic, but why would a MD/MS program want a student with an existing equivalent degree in their program? I mean I know this happens. A good friend of mine had a MS and joined Pitt's MD/MS program. I know they had no desire to ever do research again and the only reason they did the program is because they were getting a full tuition scholarship. So it obviously benefits the student. But, why the program would want someone like that is beyond me.

I don't think an MD/PhD program would ever take a student who already has a PhD or is well on their way to one. If it happens it is extremely rare.

 

[CCLCMer]

This is off-topic, but why would a MD/MS program want a student with an existing equivalent degree in their program? I mean I know this happens. A good friend of mine had a MS and joined Pitt's MD/MS program. I know they had no desire to ever do research again and the only reason they did the program is because they were getting a full tuition scholarship. So it obviously benefits the student. But, why the program would want someone like that is beyond me.

You're the mod, so if you don't mind hijacking this thread a little, I'm happy to oblige you. 😉

I agree with you that MD/PhD programs will not commonly take people who already have PhDs. It makes sense to me, because there is no point to earning two PhDs. Once you have a PhD, you can always post doc in a related field if you want to do research that's not related to your PhD. Getting a PhD takes so much time and costs so much in terms of training the person that it would probably never be financially worthwhile to earn two PhDs. But MD/MS programs are much more willing to consider these students because you're talking about only one year of research training, and they really want people who have a proven track record in research. They are understandably pretty confident that an incoming student with a PhD and additional research experience is likely to continue on with a research career, and is not likely to drop out of the program during the research year. (It's not really much of an option here anyway. I guess you could try to transfer into Case's 4-year UP program, but so far no one has done this.)

We have two students in my class of 32 who came in with PhDs. There are three other PhDs currently at CCLCM (two first years, one fourth year). As far as I know, all five of them intend to continue doing research after graduating. In fact, four of them had already done post docs or worked in research before they came here, and one has even been a PI and run a lab. (Even as a medical student, this person has continued to pump out papers. It's pretty incredible.) I know that at least one of the PhDs here was also accepted to the Pitt CSTP that you mentioned and was deciding between them. This person also had been offered scholarships to some four year programs, but they still wanted to come to a five year program anyway. I'm not sure if the fifth one has any additional research experience, but you can see that the kind of PhDs that are being accepted here are people who have significant research track records, not so much the career student types who jump around from degree to degree. I can't imagine it being worth doing a PhD and post doc just to get a scholarship to a five year research med school if you really don't want to do research!

In the end, there's no guarantee that any of us will be physician scientists after we finish our programs. (By "us," I mean MD/MS students, and also MD/PhD students.) All of our programs try to select people who they think are dedicated to research careers, and sometimes people like your friend manage to slip through because they pretend to want a research career convincingly. But I think that most people in MD/MS and MD/PhD programs do come in with the intention of doing research at least part time during their careers. Who knows, maybe your friend will still decide to do some clinical research even if he doesn't want to be a lab scientist. The CSTP is more like Case/CCLCM's Clinical Research Scholars Program--it's very clinician-scientist oriented.