Ask LizzyM (Almost) Anything 2012 edition
Started by LizzyM
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LizzyM, I can't express how grateful we all are to you and to SDN for doing this. Two unrelated questions -
- Different medical schools have different missions. A D.O. school will have a different mission than an M.D. school. Some schools aim to train primary care physicians, some rural workers, etc. Given that the mission of the top schools is likely to be research, what kind of MDs do they hope to graduate - are they less interested in those who want to go into primary care in a rural area?
- A tenured Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering who oversees budgeting issues of our office expressed an interest in medical school. Will medical schools accept someone really brilliant (PhD from CalTech, many publications, has been tenured by two universities) who scores in the 40's on the MCAT if he hasn't formally taken any courses in Biology-Chemistry-Organic?
- Different medical schools have different missions. A D.O. school will have a different mission than an M.D. school. Some schools aim to train primary care physicians, some rural workers, etc. Given that the mission of the top schools is likely to be research, what kind of MDs do they hope to graduate - are they less interested in those who want to go into primary care in a rural area?
- A tenured Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering who oversees budgeting issues of our office expressed an interest in medical school. Will medical schools accept someone really brilliant (PhD from CalTech, many publications, has been tenured by two universities) who scores in the 40's on the MCAT if he hasn't formally taken any courses in Biology-Chemistry-Organic?
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It is often the smartest thing you can do.
Top research schools hope that some/most of their students will become the next generation of academic physicians combining patient care, research, teaching and (some would add) advocacy.
What do you think "pre-requisites" means? It means "it is required before you begin. "
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Here's a random one (that has possibly been answered before many many times):
How does one go about becoming part of the admissions committee at a school?
What were your reasons for getting involved in the admissions process? Was there much foresight in the decision (aka you knew in med school or even UG you wanted to be part of admissions)
Finally, do you have any other roles outside of admissions?
Thank you LizzyM, you have been of great help to me before and I wish you a merry xmas 🙂
How does one go about becoming part of the admissions committee at a school?
What were your reasons for getting involved in the admissions process? Was there much foresight in the decision (aka you knew in med school or even UG you wanted to be part of admissions)
Finally, do you have any other roles outside of admissions?
Thank you LizzyM, you have been of great help to me before and I wish you a merry xmas 🙂
Thank you for your help!
Do you view Goldwater Scholarships as impressive and/or worthy of listing?
LizzyM,
Do the top schools expect all of their medical students to be significantly involved in research in their future careers? If so, then why wouldn't they expect their medical students to get MD-PhDs if they want them all to do major research? For me, I feel like getting an MD means that I can be involved in significant patient care and then do research if time permits...
And if these schools are looking for "future leaders in medicine", can't I become a doctor who leads by providing quality patient care instead of only doing research most of the time?
If these schools want academic physicians, I feel like I can become one through patient care and teaching students through association with a medical school.
What's your take?
Do the top schools expect all of their medical students to be significantly involved in research in their future careers? If so, then why wouldn't they expect their medical students to get MD-PhDs if they want them all to do major research? For me, I feel like getting an MD means that I can be involved in significant patient care and then do research if time permits...
And if these schools are looking for "future leaders in medicine", can't I become a doctor who leads by providing quality patient care instead of only doing research most of the time?
If these schools want academic physicians, I feel like I can become one through patient care and teaching students through association with a medical school.
What's your take?
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Someone thought I'd be good at this and recommended me to the Dean. The appointment comes from the Dean. The service is voluntary and is considered part of "good citizenship" as a member of the academic community.
I never went to medical school; I have a degree in another discipline (no further details will be forthcoming). I did not even think about this volunteer service until I was tapped to serve.
Yes, I have served on other committees as a good citizen of the university.
LizzyM points are just a way of comparing your gpa and MCAT to the average gpa and average MCAT of the current crop of students at that school or the most recent applicants offered admission. (depending on which source of information you use for your comparison). Aside from military service which tends to be highly valued by by adcoms, particularly in the last few years, it is hard to quantify how various experiences raise one's status with an adcom.
Appreciate your advice LizzyM.
My final questions:
Q1. Would this be a poor or proper example of an upward trend i.e will more work be needed or not?
As an academic aside, I scored a 34S (13 PS 11VR 10 BS). My last ten units were upper division biology courses.
Q2. The 10 units of post-bacc work were from 2 3-unit courses and 2 2-unit. They were all content heavy. The 2 unit courses didn't have a book so they were 2 units. How would these be viewed?
Q3. Would research courses count for or against you? I recall reading from one of your previous posts that they wouldn't count against you. My research gave me a coauthorship but I wasn't sure whether 8 graded units would be considered GPA inflation and wanted to confirm.
Q4. As a post-bacc I'm doing clinical volunteering, shadowing and volunteering at a children's shelter. Because I don't have numbers going for me I figured that I should shift my focus on beefing up my ECs. I know that these activities are necessary but NOT sufficient. Should I be involved with other activities?
Merry Christmas and Have a Wonderful New Years!
Frankly, I didn't know much about them until today. They are, supposedly, awarded almost exclusively to people who intend to go on to PhDs in math, natural science and engineering. There are a couple hundred awarded each year. I would look at it almost like any other scholarship or honor listed on the application which is to say, not much.
I have a LizzyM score greater than 75 and my secondary applications to mostly top 25 schools were submitted near the end of September/mid October.
I haven't heard back from 80% of the schools I applied to and have managed to dodge a few rejection waves at some schools. Assuming that my personal statement is not downright offensive and my extracurriculars are decent, what exactly is holding up my application here? Is it just that there are too many applicants and they need the time to sort through them all or I'm getting silently rejected here?
Thanks in advance!
I haven't heard back from 80% of the schools I applied to and have managed to dodge a few rejection waves at some schools. Assuming that my personal statement is not downright offensive and my extracurriculars are decent, what exactly is holding up my application here? Is it just that there are too many applicants and they need the time to sort through them all or I'm getting silently rejected here?
Thanks in advance!
(GPA x 10) + MCAT +/- 1 = LizzyM score
Plus or minus one based on optimism/conservatism.
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Mcat total + (gpa x 10). Sometimes people add or subtract 1... idk
It takes time to wade through the applications and you were very late. If you get interview invites from 20% of the schools that you applied to, you should consider this a successful cycle and if you are any good you should be able to parlay at least one of those interviews to an offer of admission. It would not surprise me to have 75% silent rejections...
You might want to update your mdapplicants profile or unlink it from your account here because as it is, it is a waste of time.
Thank you, LizzyM! It's great to see a source of authenticity and wisdom on SDN =D
How do they treat "retaken" classes? Especially if the second grade isn't an A
A second question...about course load. Everything discussed here is in a credit system I'm not familiar with. Nearly every class is 1 credit, labs are .5 credits. Example, Physics 1 + Lab = 1.5 credits. So translating 16 credits that would be 4 classes? I usually take 5 or 5.5 credits but I'm tempted to scale back to 4 first semester next year? I think my B+ in Physics this year could be attributed to overloading myself. Though at the same time, maybe I just need to get used to it--which my pollyanna alterego says I can do
Edit: Do honors programs make any impact, as far as you know? A representative from NYU said they did, but he also said they have a preference for applicants who completed their summer program and you completely disagreed with that. So, sorting things out
Thanks again & Happy Holidays!! 😀
How do they treat "retaken" classes? Especially if the second grade isn't an A
A second question...about course load. Everything discussed here is in a credit system I'm not familiar with. Nearly every class is 1 credit, labs are .5 credits. Example, Physics 1 + Lab = 1.5 credits. So translating 16 credits that would be 4 classes? I usually take 5 or 5.5 credits but I'm tempted to scale back to 4 first semester next year? I think my B+ in Physics this year could be attributed to overloading myself. Though at the same time, maybe I just need to get used to it--which my pollyanna alterego says I can do
Edit: Do honors programs make any impact, as far as you know? A representative from NYU said they did, but he also said they have a preference for applicants who completed their summer program and you completely disagreed with that. So, sorting things out
Thanks again & Happy Holidays!! 😀
At the end of the cycle? Does this suggest that the later applications are left unread?
What exactly is the advantage of applying early? I understand there will be more potential interview openings if you apply earlier, but if an applicant is a 'lock' for an interview submitting in July, shouldn't a person still be a 'lock' for an interview being complete in September?
They are factored in along with everything else. Not getting an A the second time around means that some points that could have contributed to the gpa were "left on the table" so to speak both the first and second time.
30 credits per year represents the equivalent of 450 classroom hours. Lab hours are usuall given 1/2 credit (a 90 minute lab per week for 15 weeks is 1 credit). So, when I carried 17 credits it was 15 hours of class per week and 3 hours of labs.
If you think that the workload is hurting your performance then you should cut back.
Well, I don't speak for NYU. If someone from NYU tells you that they prefer applicants that complete their summer program, then take them at their word. I'm at just one school and I don't know much about the preferences of other schools.
My school does like to see honors programs. They also help you at registration time at some schools which can be a big help to you aside from med school applications. Some also include a thesis which is a plus.
Meriting a limited resource is easier when the resource is in greater supply. Consider it from the perspective of the adcom.
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Eventually, the schools will send you some sort of rejection letter but it might be springtime before that happens. Some schools, I've heard, really do reject silently with no communication, ever. 🙁
The problem at this time of year is that there are very few interview slots and yet very many very qualified applicants. It is far easier to get slated for an interview when there are only a few thousand applicants than at the end of the season when there are twice as many or more.
I didn't even consider the fact that of course there are fewer applicants for the adcom to choose among in giving interviews early in the cycle, of course that helps in addition to the number of remaining interviews to be given being high.
Thanks for doing this again Lizzy!
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What beside military service, stats do you value highly, then?
There are the cook-cutter pre-med activities like volunteer-work and shadowing, but what besides these things and stats matter to adcoms?
It's research, right?
Let me see if I can explain this with some made-up numbers.
Let's say a school is going to interview 600 applicants, 100 per month from September through February.
Let's say that there are 6000 applications and that the secondaries arrive as follows:
July: 2000
August: 2000
Sept.: 1000
Oct 500
Nov 500
Interview invites go out ~ 4 wks in advance.
September interviews, 100, are extended to 100 of the 2000 July applicants, leaving 1900 uninterviewed.
October interviews, 100, are extended to the best of the 3900 applicants that came in by the end of August.
November interviews are extended to the best 100 of the 4800 applicants in the queue.
December interviews go to the best 100 of the 5200 applicants who are still waiting for interview invites.
January interviews go to the best 100 of the 5600 applicants still waiting.
February interviews go to the best 100 of the 5500 still waiting.
Someone who is amazing may get interviewed even if they apply on the last day but most people are going to be at a disadvantage competing against 5500 others for one of those last 100 slots.
Well, publications are certainly a plus as are podium presentations & posters at meetings. An award of funding for one's project is admirable.
In terms of the tasks, people do small animal surgery, manage breeding colonies, train or treat animals and make observations, do PCR and other bench work that is molecular or genetic.
It is less desirable that a March or April date.
Before 4th of July.
research, especially high level independent research
non-clinical volunteering
EMT and other clinical employment
engagement in leadership or supervisory roles
peer teaching/tutoring
athletics
bootstrap applicants who have overcome exceptional family circumstances
I really can't quantify them.
If I spend 5 years doing undergrad as a biochem major, is it okay to take 9 hours in a semester? Or would you still like to see 30 or more credits per year?
Thanks so much!!! You've helped me invaluably.
Thanks so much!!! You've helped me invaluably.
There is no such thing as part-time medical school so med schools like to see applicants who can handle a full-time load while engaging in other activities as well. That's ideal. This isn't to say that someone who takes it light and slow won't get admitted to med school but the best odds are for those who can handle a challenging curriculum and a heavy load.
If it was a big national meeting for professionals (not just students) such as the one described here: http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2005/11/69336?currentPage=all and you have done further research of any kind since them, well, ok.
You can't rest on your HS laurels, though, so include the HS stuff only if you have additional activites of that sort. At some point, the more recent stuff pushes the old stuff out as there isn't room for eveything.
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So, is a January MCAT date better or worse than a March/April date? Or it doesn't really matter? This is regarding applying in June.
Is it even worth mentioning "trivial" things such as pre-med honor society, other honor societies, honors programs, general awards (non-national)?
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January is fine. the point is to have your scores available before you submit your application so that you can apply early and target your applications taking your scores into account.
I tend to skip over those things when I scan the experience section. If you have honors classes that will show up on the "transcript" section of the AMCAS application.
So is the honors program different than graduating with honors in your given degree? If they are different, are they looked at different? I know that at my school, if you do research, meet GPA requirements, and do a certain type of thesis you can graduate with honors in Biology. But I also know that there is some sort of honors program for students straight out of high school but it is not available to transfer students.
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Similar setup at my school...the honors programs are different from graduating with honors in Biology in that we get priority registration which can be a lifesaver sometimes. Other than that, we have good networking and PIs are more willing to allow students from the research oriented honors programs into their labs.
Hi LizzyM,
I would like to thank you for your time and wish you a merry christmas 😀
question:
Could you elaborate on the difference between a publication into a science journal of possible impact factor between 1-3 and an undergraduate research journal? I have been doing research for several years and I am preparing for a 1st author paper. I have the option to publish into an undergraduate research journal or spend some more time to possibly publish into a peer reviewed science journal. What do you think?
P.s I will be applying next cycle
I would like to thank you for your time and wish you a merry christmas 😀
question:
Could you elaborate on the difference between a publication into a science journal of possible impact factor between 1-3 and an undergraduate research journal? I have been doing research for several years and I am preparing for a 1st author paper. I have the option to publish into an undergraduate research journal or spend some more time to possibly publish into a peer reviewed science journal. What do you think?
P.s I will be applying next cycle
Some schools have honors level classes and those are listed on the application. A thesis should be listed under "research" in the experience section of the application.
,
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The earliest date for submitting is in early June. About 3 weeks later, AMCAS does its first data dump to the med schools. One year, we received 25% of all the applications for the year in that first late June data dump. I think that after Labor Day is late. In between July 5 and Labor Day is neither optimal nor horrible.
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