Do med schools "overaccept?"

[Law2Doc]

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i usually like your posts but this one seems a bit speculative. "most schools accept twice the number of seats" just isn't true.

It's not true because it's not an accurate quote of my post. You can't paraphrase and then attack your own paraphrase.

Some schools have more active waitlists than others. There are some schools who will fill half their class off the waitlist in a given year and others which have lists that historically don't move. But either way the school is attempting to accept an initial number which fills the bulk of their class. This is hard to gauge because the best applicants usually have multiple choices. So you can accept 300 people for 150 slots and still need to pull 60 people out of the waitlist. Or you can accept 300 people, get 170 deposits, and be praying till the last minute that a few more people will get off waitlists elsewhwere and don't matriculate. But from what I've seen, that is how it frequently works.

 

[45408]

my 3.85/41 hasn't gotten me jack from mcw and I was complete mid-july

ECs, personal statement, LORs, and "good fit" are all important components of your app. I highly, highly doubt you haven't heard back because your stats are "too high."

 

[SoFlaKnight]

Btw by UM I meant Michigan.

You freaked me out for a second😳

 

[TheRealMD]

There is a difference between "overaccepting" and giving out enough offers to fill your class. Stats you find in books don't really tell you much about that.

A school is "overaccepting" if they have more outstanding offers than they have acceptances AT ONE TIME. Few schools will do this, and those that do have a good reason to do so (another school in the local area that people often go to).

Most schools however will choose to replace a declined acceptance with another offer and not much else.

Regardless, "waitlists" are only useful for schools that are uber-conservative with who they accept. Otherwise, the entire interviewee pool is on a waitlist!!