Are there more med students than professors on adcoms?

[sunshine02]

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Or does it tend to vary? Also, for those who are adcoms, do med students tend to be more strict/harsh when evaluating applicants?

 

[LizzyM]

Or does it tend to vary? Also, for those who are adcoms, do med students tend to be more strict/harsh when evaluating applicants?

The faculty outnumber the students on the adcom. LCME (accrediting body for medical schools) requires that admission decisions be made by a committee of faculty. Schools can engage students as interviewers and application reviewers but I've never seen students have a vote in the actual admit/decline decisions but rather contributing opinions at an earlier stage than when the final decisions are made.

Faculty outnumber students about 5-10:1 on the adcom.

 

[gyngyn]

Many schools have voting student members.
Their standards can be quite high.

 

[RK.md]

When I was on our adcom, we had roughly an equal number of student and faculty interviewers on any given interview day. We were all (equal) voting members too.

Sometimes the student interviewers can actually be more difficult. They were in your shoes much more recently, so a lot of the typical BS doesn't fly. 😉

 

[Goro]

Professors >>>students, but oddly, my students are indeed harsher on interviewees than we are.

Or does it tend to vary? Also, for those who are adcoms, do med students tend to be more strict/harsh when evaluating applicants?

 

[SpartanWolverine]

General answer: no.

We have two students on our admissions committee (so faculty >> students) and plenty of students who contribute scores during interviews.

This is true of any College committee for us (disciplinary, admissions, curriculum, etc.) but, from my experience with various committees, student representatives always get more than fair input.

 

[deleted480308]

I would expect students to be more brutal than staff. It's probably in everyone's best interest that staff outnumber students on the adcom

 

[NickNaylor]

My institution had four parallel committees of 12 members. For each committee meeting, there were two students and ten faculty members. As students, we had full voting rights and the faculty often gave us wide deference in terms of our thoughts on applicants, particularly if we interacted directly with the applicant.

 

[sunshine02]

My institution had four parallel committees of 12 members. For each committee meeting, there were two students and ten faculty members. As students, we had full voting rights and the faculty often gave us wide deference in terms of our thoughts on applicants, particularly if we interacted directly with the applicant.

Do they randomly assort the applications so that each committee gets approximately an equal number of applications to review? What happens if someone on the committee actually knows the applicant?
And do med students just volunteer themselves to do this or are they chosen?

 

[NickNaylor]

Do they randomly assort the applications so that each committee gets approximately an equal number of applications to review? What happens if someone on the committee actually knows the applicant?
And do med students just volunteer themselves to do this or are they chosen?

Yes, each committee reviews an approximately equivalent number of applications.

If someone knows an applicant, that in and of itself isn't necessarily problematic. However, if there's a potential conflict of interest, then there are actually three students assigned to each committee but they rotate with respect to who goes to any one meeting. They would likely have the committee member with a potential conflict of interest replaced by the other student.

The students are chosen for the committee by a competitive process.