Critiquing "Application Renovation"

[KnightDoc]

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While it's important, I don't think it's a great evaluative measure given the fact that GPA inflation varies school by school. I guess that is why we have the MCAT, to balance everything out.

I guess "great" evaluative measure is relative.

Everything you say about inflation and variation is true. That's why MCATs aren't going anywhere.

And sure, if everyone has a 3.9, they lose their significance. But, even with inflation and variation, everyone doesn't have a 3.9. And if you don't then it's pretty damn important, since that's the median at top schools (actually, 3.95 at a school like NYU -- can you imagine? 🙂).

3.74 is the national mean for matriculants. Try telling someone with a very solid 3.5 or 3.6 GPA and no acceptances that GPA is not a great evaluative measure. You are correct, but that's assuming you have a 3.7+. Then it doesn't really distinguish you from the next candidate. Below 3.7, unless you have a pretty good X-factor, you start to have real problems.

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

My GPA had come up much more often than MCAT in interviews so I guess it kind of just depends. I thought it would be opposite but maybe extremely high scores (higher than mine) have become more common

 

[KnightDoc]

My GPA had come up much more often than MCAT in interviews so I guess it kind of just depends. I thought it would be opposite but maybe extremely high scores (higher than mine) have become more common

In what context? That's pretty unusual, since it's a black and white metric, unless it's in connection with an overcoming adversity story. 3.8+ and 3.9+ are the medians at all the top schools, so how would even a 4.0 be worth valuable interview time? Super high GPAs are far from rare at many schools nowadays.

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

In what context? That's pretty unusual, since it's a black and white metric, unless it's in connection with an overcoming adversity story. 3.8+ and 3.9+ are the medians at all the top schools, so how would even a 4.0 be worth valuable interview time? Super high GPAs are far from rare at many schools nowadays.

It has always came up in context with the school I went to

Some interviewers didn’t have access to gpa or MCAT so obviously didn’t come up in these

 

[DoctorFate]

My GPA had come up much more often than MCAT in interviews so I guess it kind of just depends. I thought it would be opposite but maybe extremely high scores (higher than mine) have become more common

In what context? That's pretty unusual, since it's a black and white metric, unless it's in connection with an overcoming adversity story. 3.8+ and 3.9+ are the medians at all the top schools, so how would even a 4.0 be worth valuable interview time? Super high GPAs are far from rare at many schools nowadays.

I can second vox. In every single interview where the interviewer had access to my stats, my GPA was always brought up, usually in relation to my course load (wow, this is a really high GPA for someone with a double major double minor, especially including CS- i went into more detail in another thread).

In vox's case, I assume a 4.0 from HYPSM (especially if it was the M) would be inherently impressive even if it was only a single major (im not sure what or how many majors you did)

 

[LizzyM]

A super-high GPA from a school known for grade deflation will bring a comment from an interviewer, if only, "how did you manage that!?"

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

I’m not saying that them mentioning my GPA has worked by any strech, considering I’ve been put on 2WLs and 0 acceptances (with 3 schools releasing), but I think that it’s more a function of committee score vs interview score.

 

[LunaOri]

I just watched a bit of the first episode, and his advice seemed reasonable enough.
Yes, you should absolutely tell YOUR story and not try to make your experiences fit into what you perceive to be the “right” story.
Yes, you should “show not tell” in your personal statement and other long essays, but I don’t think you need to do that for every activity.
The applicant in the video had super-high stats and a truly atrocious PS, so it was obvious what part of his application needed to be improved.

 

[MyOdyssey]

After an initial electronic screening (I don't know the metrics used for that), those that meet the screen are sent for in-depth review by a faculty member. (those that miss the screen might still get eyeballs for a minute to be sure nothing extraordinary was missed). The pre-interview screen will look at GPA, rigor of the major and the school, MCAT, letters of rec, community service, experience with medicine including shadowing, research, teamwork/leadership, other considerations. The reviewer recommends interview or not. There may be a second and even a third review to confirm or refute the recommendation of the first reviewer but the goal is to whittle the pool of applicants down to the 10-15% who can be accommodated for an interview.

Along with GPA and major and sGPA, one might look at when the applicant was likely to have chosen to pursue pre-med. Someone with a 3.3 GPA and a 3.95 sGPA may be a former opera singer whose grades in the conservatory were okay but who kicked it up a notch in a post-bac at age 26. Sometimes the eyeballs on the application are really necessary as a screen misses some real gems.

Thanks for this. I imagine that your school is able to devote so much attention to applicants who clear the initial electronic GPA screen only because the bar set by that screen is set high enough to really winnow down the pool to manageable numbers.

Are you able to determine in reviewing the academic records of applicants who clear that screen whether the GPA threshold is basically a 3.90 cGPA or 3.90 sGPA?

 

[KnightDoc]

Thanks for this. I imagine that your school is able to devote so much attention to applicants who clear the initial electronic GPA screen only because the bar set by that screen is set high enough to really winnow down the pool to manageable numbers.

Are you able to determine in reviewing the academic records of applicants who clear that screen whether the GPA threshold is basically a 3.90 cGPA or 3.90 sGPA?

I honestly think you have this backwards, and that the auto-screen is set pretty low in order to just avoid wasting people's time with files that would never be accepted under any circumstances. As @LizzyM said, many gems would be missed without human eyeballs. There is no way an algorithm is screening out sub 3.9s or sub 518s at any school, even one like NYU.

This doesn't mean that a 3.7/514 gets more than a cursory glance at super high stat schools in order to identify the gems warranting a deeper dive (refuting your assumption that every file that passes the auto-screen receives "so much attention"), but I am pretty sure the serious whittling down is done by humans, which is why the process takes as long as it does. There are only so many 3.9+/518+ applicants to go around. If that were the auto-screen at high stat schools, it would be pretty easy for adcoms to decide who to call in for an interview after that, because there wouldn't be that many applicants left to choose from. 🙂

 

[GreekRaven]

For the past year or two, I've only been seeing applicants after they are selected for interview. So, while someone else is reading the applications, they weren't being queued for interview with less than 130 in at least 3 sections and nothing less than 128 in the lowest section which does some to not less than 518. However, times are changing and this year I'm seeing more scores in the 512-517 range although they are vastly outnumbered by the 520+ applicants.

Many years ago, I felt sad that so many people here reported applying "broadly" meaning that they applied to the T20s with a 3.5/510 and I came up with the LizzyM score to help people target their applications to the schools where they'd be among the "average" students and not applying solely to reaches. WARS has pretty much supplanted the LizzyM score but it is still wise, I think, to target your applications with your "metrics" rather than expecting that your "stories" will make you a "must interview" applicant despite a "below-average-for-that-school" MCAT/GPA.

Is there a link to these LizzyM and WARS scores somewhere?

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

Google “LizzyM sdn” “WARS sdn”

Should take you to the calculators

 

[LizzyM]

Is there a link to these LizzyM and WARS scores somewhere?

WedgeDawg's Applicant Rating System (Updated Jan 2017)

Link to online WARS Calculator Latest version is 1.3 (Released January 2017) Collaborator credit: @To be MD Introduction As some of you may have seen, I've recently been pioneering a new system that helps applicants figure out where they stand with respect to medical school admissions as...

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The LizzyM score was very simple at the beginning: MCAT + (gpa*10). That's back when the MCAT was from 20-something to ~43 and a 30 could often get you into med school somewhere. We came up with something to approximate it after the MCAT changed. I think it was something like 2(MCAT-500)+ 10(GPA). So, roughly a 520/4.0 was a 80 and a 510/3.8 was a 58. The point was to compare this mathematical combination of the two measures against the same combination for a given school and to choose schools where your score was similar for the median at a given school. It has its failings when MCAT and GPA are at the extremes and when the two are discordant. WARS is clearly an advancement on the rudimentary LizzyM scores.