anyone else have a slap-to-the face rejection?

[felipe5]

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I know that ALL rejections are a slap to the face, but some hurt way more than others.

As some of you may have seen on a thread I posted earlier this week, I applied to Wash U and hadn't heard anything back from them. So I called them today, and they told me that they had just sent me a letter saying that I WOULDN'T get an interview.

So, it shouldn't be that big of a deal......I mean, my stats are pretty good (definately not a 36 MCAT), and I am an URM with great EC's,etc , but the kicker is that I spent a summer doing research at WUSM through an internship there, and one of my LOR's came from a faculty member who used to be on the board of admissions! I'm not saying that I thought I was a shoe-in to get accepted....but I thought I was a shoe-in for an interview. WTF

: pimp slap :

 

[TRUE]

Originally posted by felipe5
I know that ALL rejections are a slap to the face, but some hurt way more than others.

As some of you may have seen on a thread I posted earlier this week, I applied to Wash U and hadn't heard anything back from them. So I called them today, and they told me that they had just sent me a letter saying that I WOULDN'T get an interview.

So, it shouldn't be that big of a deal......I mean, my stats are pretty good (definately not a 36 MCAT), and I am an URM with great EC's,etc , but the kicker is that I spent a summer doing research at WUSM through an internship there, and one of my LOR's came from a faculty member who used to be on the board of admissions! I'm not saying that I thought I was a shoe-in to get accepted....but I thought I was a shoe-in for an interview. WTF

: pimp slap :

I think the one thing the process has taught most of us here, is that the word "shoe-in" doesn't quite mesh with anything related to medical school admissions. Take it like a man (or a women), and just move on. Use your rejections as motivation...that's what I've done.

 

[ForensicPath]

All of my SUNY rejections were slap-in-the-face, but the kicker was Stony Brook (which I have whined about a number of times on here). All those rejections have motivated me not to live in New York State anymore and give them more of my tax dollars. I'll be one of those displaced New Yorkers living in Florida (I hate the hot weather).

 

[bell]

BU definitely especially since I thought it was my for sure IN. They sure proved me wrong! --- I know that I'd be ****tin a brick if I didn't get an acceptance at USC...oh well

 

[jlee9531]

Originally posted by facted
I think the one thing the process has taught most of us here, is that the word "shoe-in" doesn't quite mesh with anything related to medical school admissions. Take it like a man (or a women), and just move on. Use your rejections as motivation...that's what I've done.

definitely...i kinda chuckle at people who say they have a connection on the adcom and end up not getting accepted cause they think that wild card will always pan out.

if they only knew.

 

[edik]

Mayo rejection was pretty bad... I sent them 2 letters and made a phone call to let them know that I plan to take Biochemistry in the summer. Next thing I know, I am getting a rejection via snail-mail which says that it's due to my lack of Biochemistry requirement.
So I am all hopeful, about to call them to correct this matter... And guess what? Before I can do this, I get an e-mail from them telling me that the rejection was for a wrong reason. It is not because of the Biochemistry, but because of their small class-size, blah blah blah.
Damn that was bad!

 

[kwanny]

My rejection from BU was definitely a *biatch slap* in the face. Also, being put on hold at UCI was another slap, and getting waitlisted at Einstein and UVM was yet another beating. Thought they were my safety's when I first applied. *sigh* 🙄

 

[exmike]

Getting rejected PRE-SECONDARY at Indiana in JULY reminded me the med school application process pimp hand was strong. It was so painful and humiliating since at that time I wasn't sure I'd get in anywhere and here was this school telling me I'm not even good enough for a secondary in JULY. I can still feel the indentation of the pimp-ring on my cheek.

 

[CalBeE]

Well I think we just all have to get rid of the word "shoe-in" in our dictionary. I got into Vanderbilt first before I heard back from U of Chicago, so I thought I should have a decent chance there. But I was waitlisted...again that's probably b/c I don't have what Pritzker's looking for.

Now that I'm waiting some schools post-interview, I didn't hesitate to update my app and write letters of interest in each to hopefully support my case in adcom.

 

[ocean11]

Wake Forest was THE WORST! I wrote about it earlier, but anyhow, the rejection letter was 'standard' BUT when I called the admissions secretary was SO RUDE! she told me that my Science GPA (3.55 Cumulative) was all over the place. When I told her that I had surgery in my 3rd year and therefore had a lower GPA that year, she said "What kind of med school student will you be if your GPA is a 3.5 now?!?!?" so she dissed my GPA which isn't 'all that bad'😱 and when i told her "Take a look at my BS and PS sections on the MCAT" (got 12 on each) she said "Oh I guess you have a point, but with your awful 7 in verbal you don't stand a chance with this school"

Ummmmmmmmmmmm yeah whatever....... oh well their loss......


On the other hand the easiest-to-handle 'rejections' I got were from Temple and U Penn (both presecondary)... because both schools told me I wasn't eligable due to my nationality (ie: I'm Canadian and not a US citizen). So they weren't 'really' rejections....... I just didn't qualify.

 

[CalBeE]

Originally posted by ocean11
she said "Oh I guess you have a point, but with your awful 7 in verbal you don't stand a chance with this school"

Ummmmmmmmmmmm yeah whatever....... oh well their loss......


On the other hand the easiest-to-handle 'rejections' I got were from Temple and U Penn (both presecondary)... because both schools told me I wasn't eligable due to my nationality (ie: I'm Canadian and not a US citizen). So they weren't 'really' rejections....... I just didn't qualify.

Well I got an 8 in verbal and Wake Forest gave me an interview offer. I think the lady you talked to just didn't know what she was talking about.

Also for U Penn, I was applying as a foreign citizen, but I didn't hear anything from them about ineligibility to apply (NYU, on the other hand, does that one month after I submitted my app)...

 

[Blisterpeanuts]

Originally posted by felipe5
So, it shouldn't be that big of a deal......I mean, my stats are pretty good (definately not a 36 MCAT), and I am an URM with great EC's,etc , but the kicker is that I spent a summer doing research at WUSM through an internship there, and one of my LOR's came from a faculty member who used to be on the board of admissions! I'm not saying that I thought I was a shoe-in to get accepted....but I thought I was a shoe-in for an interview. WTF

: pimp slap : [/B]

Dude, it's spelled "shoo-in". If you spelled it "shoe-in" on your application then that might have counted against you.

Seriously speaking, could it be that insider LORs and contacts might actually hurt your chances? As in, they don't wish to open themselves up to charges of favoritism? I'm willing to believe that favoritism exists in medical school admissions, just like in all other walks of life, but if the institution wants to keep their whistle clean they had better be really careful with insider applicants, because it's all in the public record. -just my 2 cents

 

[woolie]

Add me to the 'rejected from all state schools' list - me and ForensicPath. Ugh.

Got the Stony Brook this week and Upstate AFTER my interview. AFTER, does that mean "now that we really see you in person, we know we sure don't want you!" ??? I was really crushed tonight coming home to the letter from Upstate. It's so horrible to have what you think might actually be a great interview and then - ouch! I am so totally bummed ... waitlisted would have been a softer blow.



🙁

 

[hypersting]

Originally posted by Blisterpeanuts
Dude, it's spelled "shoo-in". If you spelled it "shoe-in" on your application then that might have counted against you.

Seriously speaking, could it be that insider LORs and contacts might actually hurt your chances? As in, they don't wish to open themselves up to charges of favoritism? I'm willing to believe that favoritism exists in medical school admissions, just like in all other walks of life, but if the institution wants to keep their whistle clean they had better be really careful with insider applicants, because it's all in the public record. -just my 2 cents

I think I got dinged because of this. I knew people on an adcom and was going to interview with one of them, if I got an interview. I was confident I would get one, since it has among the lowest averages stat-wise amongst all of the medical schools. Got a straight up Rejection instead. It really shook me up.

 

[PianoGirl04]

Hmmm...I have some interesting stories here.

First, I have a friend who is a CA resident applying for both MD and MD/PhD. She's an excellent student (GPA around 4.0) with an MCAT in the high 30s, ECs all over the place (including various exec board positions, establishing a chapter of a student organization at Cornell, and a competitive study abroad at Oxford), an "overcoming adversity" situation (which I won't go into because it's personal), etc. And she did a summer of research at UCI, which got her a LOR from someone on the ad-comm. Not joking here. That's the very definition of shoo-in. The only disadvantage is that she applied pretty late in the process because she did her Oxford semester during the spring of her junior year. She still took the MCAT in August, but AMCAS had to wait a while for her Oxford transcript.

So guess what happened? She got put on the dreaded "interview hold" at UCI. The very school where she participated in ground-breaking research and got to know adcomm members. (Blisterpeanuts - I think you may have a valid point about insider contacts, but she also had an excellent application in every other area.) That just goes to show you how much of a crapshoot this is. She just found out she got into another school's MD/PhD program, so at least she's not left to dry without any acceptances.

My story is not quite so drastic, but getting this rejection still shocked me. I'm a Cornell undergrad with very good stats, lots of ECs, good LORs, etc. (not trying to toot my own horn here, just proving a point). I got interview offers at all but 2 of the schools I applied to. One of those was UCSD, which is certainly understandable since I'm not a CA resident. The other was Cornell. Yes, Cornell...the same school where I'm a senior double major with a GPA above 4.0.

These things just don't make any sense sometimes.

 

[Spitting Camel]

Originally posted by PianoGirl04
...the same school where I'm a senior double major with a GPA above 4.0.

These things just don't make any sense sometimes.

Kind of like how a GPA above 4.0 doesn't make much sense? How did you manage that? 😕

 

[Kashue]

Originally posted by PianoGirl04



....
So guess what happened? She got put on the dreaded "interview hold" at UCI...

There's no such thing as a shoo in. I was told personally by a Dean that I would get in. Guess what? Wait-listed.

 

[PianoGirl04]

Originally posted by AlreadyInDebt
Kind of like how a GPA above 4.0 doesn't make much sense? How did you manage that? 😕

A+ figures in as 4.3 at Cornell, and I ended up with a few of those along the way. Each school does it differently...some don't give A+ grades, etc.

 

[Spitting Camel]

Originally posted by PianoGirl04
A+ figures in as 4.3 at Cornell, and I ended up with a few of those along the way. Each school does it differently...some don't give A+ grades, etc.

Wow! I wish my school did that! Too bad AMCAS doesn't count them.

 

[jlee9531]

Originally posted by AlreadyInDebt
Kind of like how a GPA above 4.0 doesn't make much sense? How did you manage that? 😕

i think that there are schools out there that do the high school thing and give you extra grades for an A+ or something like that.

ive never heard of this before either until i read it somewhere on here.

 

[PianoGirl04]

Originally posted by AlreadyInDebt
Wow! I wish my school did that! Too bad AMCAS doesn't count them.

Yeah, that's true...I keep on forgetting that AMCAS counts A+ as A. Sorry for the confusion!

 

[exmike]

Originally posted by felipe5
I know that ALL rejections are a slap to the face, but some hurt way more than others.

As some of you may have seen on a thread I posted earlier this week, I applied to Wash U and hadn't heard anything back from them. So I called them today, and they told me that they had just sent me a letter saying that I WOULDN'T get an interview.

So, it shouldn't be that big of a deal......I mean, my stats are pretty good (definately not a 36 MCAT), and I am an URM with great EC's,etc , but the kicker is that I spent a summer doing research at WUSM through an internship there, and one of my LOR's came from a faculty member who used to be on the board of admissions! I'm not saying that I thought I was a shoe-in to get accepted....but I thought I was a shoe-in for an interview. WTF

: pimp slap :

You should know by now that WUSTL doesnt actively recruit URMs, so in that respect you had relatively average app there, so its really not THAT big of a shock. You got in a great school anyway though!

 

[BigRedPingpong]

Originally posted by PianoGirl04
Hmmm...I have some interesting stories here.

First, I have a friend who is a CA resident applying for both MD and MD/PhD. She's an excellent student (GPA around 4.0) with an MCAT in the high 30s, ECs all over the place (including various exec board positions, establishing a chapter of a student organization at Cornell, and a competitive study abroad at Oxford), an "overcoming adversity" situation (which I won't go into because it's personal), etc. And she did a summer of research at UCI, which got her a LOR from someone on the ad-comm. Not joking here. That's the very definition of shoo-in. The only disadvantage is that she applied pretty late in the process because she did her Oxford semester during the spring of her junior year. She still took the MCAT in August, but AMCAS had to wait a while for her Oxford transcript.

So guess what happened? She got put on the dreaded "interview hold" at UCI. The very school where she participated in ground-breaking research and got to know adcomm members. (Blisterpeanuts - I think you may have a valid point about insider contacts, but she also had an excellent application in every other area.) That just goes to show you how much of a crapshoot this is. She just found out she got into another school's MD/PhD program, so at least she's not left to dry without any acceptances.

My story is not quite so drastic, but getting this rejection still shocked me. I'm a Cornell undergrad with very good stats, lots of ECs, good LORs, etc. (not trying to toot my own horn here, just proving a point). I got interview offers at all but 2 of the schools I applied to. One of those was UCSD, which is certainly understandable since I'm not a CA resident. The other was Cornell. Yes, Cornell...the same school where I'm a senior double major with a GPA above 4.0.

These things just don't make any sense sometimes.

Say, I'm a senior at Cornell w/ a non-AMCAS GPA above 4.0 too. THose bastards at Weill show us no love! Although, I have heard of a slew of acceptances by our fellow Cornellians lately. Perhaps we were just unlucky. Oh well.

 

[kingcer0x]

I feel your SUNY rejections. My Upstate rejection kinda hurt. I could give a flying crap about my downstate rejection.

Maybe Stony and B-low will show me some love, but somehow i doubt it. Youd think a state with some of the worst taxes in the country would show some love to in-staters instead of jumping for that out of state money this year. I know the state is broke post-911 and such, but I like new york and wanted to stay!

 

[PianoGirl04]

Originally posted by BigRedPingpong
Say, I'm a senior at Cornell w/ a non-AMCAS GPA above 4.0 too. THose bastards at Weill show us no love! Although, I have heard of a slew of acceptances by our fellow Cornellians lately. Perhaps we were just unlucky. Oh well.

LOL, yeah. My guess is that they filled their Cornellian quota before they got to our apps. Whatever.

 

[oldtimer]

Yeah, getting rejected preinterview by your alma mater is the ultimate *biatch* slap. 🙁

And I was going to include them in my will.

 

[Zahri]

Oh. Well this isn't really a rejection but it's an insult. I'm applying as a Michigan resident...have decent stats (3.75 engineering from UMich and an above 30 MCAT...though barely...so nothing compared to many of you here but certainly good enough for MSU) AND GUESS WHAT!?! Pre-secondary hold! Come on now. And by the way, I'm not sore rejcet (okay maybe a little) but I truly don't buy the oh maybe I don't fit their primary care profile.... I mean it's one thing not to get an interview or an acceptance but A SECONDARY!?!🙁 🙂

 

[Gleevec]

Originally posted by PianoGirl04
A+ figures in as 4.3 at Cornell, and I ended up with a few of those along the way. Each school does it differently...some don't give A+ grades, etc.

CRAP, my school just gives us a 4.0 for an A+, even though only a very few students get it in certain classes. Im so jealous.

 

[ice_23]

Originally posted by Gleevec
CRAP, my school just gives us a 4.0 for an A+, even though only a very few students get it in certain classes. Im so jealous.

It doesn't matter for med schools, though...

-Ice

 

[Gleevec]

Originally posted by ice_23
It doesn't matter for med schools, though...

-Ice

Oh, good point. I should have read the rest of the thread. 😉

 

[CalBeE]

Originally posted by ice_23
It doesn't matter for med schools, though...

-Ice

I heard that law schools do give you over 4.0 for A+ for your undergrad classes....is that true?

 

[MedicationWorks]

Originally posted by BigRedPingpong
Say, I'm a senior at Cornell w/ a non-AMCAS GPA above 4.0 too. THose bastards at Weill show us no love! Although, I have heard of a slew of acceptances by our fellow Cornellians lately. Perhaps we were just unlucky. Oh well.

When I went to Cornell (undergrad) we automatically got interviews at the Weill medical school, even though they were token interviews. Maybe things have changed since I graduated..

 

[minter]

accepted at Wash U (below avg stats)
rejected later by Cornell pre-interview (above avg stats)

good thing i got the acceptance first 🙂