Do you think adcoms look on SDN

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amph119 said:
I HATE THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO!

Oh, crap, should I not post that here?
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:laugh:

I was thinking the same thing...I said some pretty hurtful things about my school but they must not have checked because those suckers took me anyway!!!
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sarahl86 said:
:laugh:

I was thinking the same thing...I said some pretty hurtful things about my school but they must not have checked because those suckers took me anyway!!!
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Oh they read them. And now they can make your life hell.

All part of the plan!
 
johncalvin said:
I have a feeling adcoms have better things to do than painstakingly match IP addresses to electronic submissions, or what not. Most don't even bother calling contacts listed in the Work/Activities section of the primary app.

Either way, it would not be very professional, or equitable for adcoms to incorporate extra information about some applicants into their decision making process, while only considering official documents for other applicants.

But what do I know, I'm just a pre-med.
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I agree with this post. Honestly, differentiating between all of us, going though our posts, md apps and attempting to match them which could or could not be accurate would seem like an extreme waste of time for people who (most adcoms are M.D.'s or PhD's or both which means they have a job, maybe a family, hundreds to interview...) I don't think it would be possible...

but who knows
 
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To OP, it's too late, we already have your information and sincerely apologize that we can't offer you a spot at this time. Perhaps it's time to put your mastery of biology to good use in the dynamic fields of zoo keeping or forest rangering?
 
The University Program office of admissions at Case has been known to lurk primarily SDN.
 
I got contacted via my application email by Director Essman at Case last year because of a post I made here (nothing bad of course. I'm sure that they would have just cut me from the list of candidates if it had been :D). My email and username are very similar, and I used to have a picture of myself as my avatar. My feeling is that schools probably spend the most time on threads dedicated to themselves.
 
So, yeah. I think adcoms are certainly reading SDN. I have no issue with the following, but here is what happened to me the last two days.

I got an email from a specific med school (you know who you are, I know your reading this :p) saying I was being considered for one of their campuses (OOS for me and the only OOS I applied for) but since I have already received in state acceptances I sent them a nice email withdrawing my application. I posted on the school specific thread that I withdrew my application.

Today I received an email from the school saying thank you for the quick response and withdrawal. Last line said:
Thank you for the prompt notice and we wish you the best at UTMB. :eek::confused:

I never said anything about UTMB, did say Texas but thats it. Haha, they must have seen my post and with my signature you dont have to be Dr. Watson.
:laugh::laugh:

I dont care, but it actually made me laugh out loud. They had to have done it on purpose just to mess with my head!! :laugh: Kind of makes me want to go there now! :laugh:

I know your reading this.....
 
7starmantis said:
So, yeah. I think adcoms are certainly reading SDN. I have no issue with the following, but here is what happened to me the last two days.

I got an email from a specific med school (you know who you are, I know your reading this :p) saying I was being considered for one of their campuses (OOS for me and the only OOS I applied for) but since I have already received in state acceptances I sent them a nice email withdrawing my application. I posted on the school specific thread that I withdrew my application.

Today I received an email from the school saying thank you for the quick response and withdrawal. Last line said:
Thank you for the prompt notice and we wish you the best at UTMB. :eek::confused:

I never said anything about UTMB, did say Texas but thats it. Haha, they must have seen my post and with my signature you dont have to be Dr. Watson.
:laugh::laugh:

I dont care, but it actually made me laugh out loud. They had to have done it on purpose just to mess with my head!! :laugh: Kind of makes me want to go there now! :laugh:

I know your reading this.....
Click to expand...

Nice, good story.
 
Jolt21 said:
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=574111&page=5

scroll down a little about the e-mail an SDN'er got...and then read the posts following.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by OnlyNeedOneYes
Hey guys, after I was rejected I inquired as to how to increase the strength of my application for next cycle. Here was the reply I got:

Sorry it took me some time to get back to your request. Here is what I would recommend. Rewrite the essays. We pay a lot of attention to all of them in the secondary. Do additional shadowing with a doctor and describe how much time you spent on that in the activities list. Describe in detail more about your volunteer activities with the church and others. We look for sacrifice of personal time for others. Interviewers look for folks who are humble, show evidence that they are willing to say “I made a mistake,” evidence of forgiveness etc. but overall I believe your interviews went well. Good luck next year but I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t get an offer somewhere this year.

Warm wishes,
Kathy Franco

Let's take a look at her last sentence again:

"Good luck next year but I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t get an offer somewhere this year."

Either her use of litotes was an accident or she was being a complete $%&#* (especially considering her friendly sign off). I thought she was really nice when I met her...


Please accept my apology. It should have read "do get an offer."

:eek::eek::eek: Oh wow!!! What do you think the reaction of the OP was??? I really hope I haven't said anything like that on SDN.
 
7starmantis said:
So, yeah. I think adcoms are certainly reading SDN. I have no issue with the following, but here is what happened to me the last two days.

I got an email from a specific med school (you know who you are, I know your reading this :p) saying I was being considered for one of their campuses (OOS for me and the only OOS I applied for) but since I have already received in state acceptances I sent them a nice email withdrawing my application. I posted on the school specific thread that I withdrew my application.

Today I received an email from the school saying thank you for the quick response and withdrawal. Last line said:
Thank you for the prompt notice and we wish you the best at UTMB. :eek::confused:

I never said anything about UTMB, did say Texas but thats it. Haha, they must have seen my post and with my signature you dont have to be Dr. Watson.
:laugh::laugh:

I dont care, but it actually made me laugh out loud. They had to have done it on purpose just to mess with my head!! :laugh: Kind of makes me want to go there now! :laugh:

I know your reading this.....
Click to expand...
Good story!

In the interest of there not being a huge debate let me just say with 100% confidence that there are members of Adcoms on here. They might get bored and try to figure out who you are, they might not. They really care about what people say about their schools, and this is a good place to find out.

As always take caution don't post anything you will later regret, yada yada.
 
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Caesar said:
Good story!

In the interest of there not being a huge debate let me just say with 100% confidence that there are members of Adcoms on here. They might get bored and try to figure out who you are, they might not. They really care about what people say about their schools, and this is a good place to find out.

As always take caution don't post anything you will later regret, yada yada.
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Boredom isn't the only reason to figure that stuff out. Protip: don't say anything completely a) unprofessional or b) insane in the school specific threads.
 
Med student adcom members? Yes. Busy docs? Unlikely.

Either way, unless you say something really offensive, no one will waste the time to try to figure out who you are
 
Ativanigans said:
Med student adcom members? Yes. Busy docs? Unlikely.

Either way, unless you say something really offensive, no one will waste the time to try to figure out who you are
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I couldn't resist playing with them a bit since it seems they were doing that with me. I sent a reply that said they knew more than I thought they did.

Response:
Yes we do, 7starmantis.

:eek: :D
 
7starmantis said:
I couldn't resist playing with them a bit since it seems they were doing that with me. I sent a reply that said they knew more than I thought they did.

Response:
Yes we do, 7starmantis.

:eek: :D
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did that really happen? D:
 
I'm honestly kind of surprised I haven't heard anything from our admissions office. The assistant admissions director is on Facebook, and I'm friends with her. I have to believe she's lurking around here somewhere, too. You hear that, Ms. DuPuy? I'm on to your tricks! :p
 
An adcom on interview day told us all that he reads SDN. I won't tell you which school's adcom member however.
 
I definitely know there are deans of admissions that browse this site and the forums.
 
As an employer, and knowing that education is subject to many of the same or analogous laws, I'd be EXTREMELY surprised if any adcom attempted to take any action that could be considered negative toward a person's application on the basis of anything they found on this or other semi-anonymous forums. They could certainly ask a person about it and if they acknowledged it was them take some action but a simple IP address match does not identify the applicant. An example would be a shared computer in a fraternity or other shared environment.

I'm sure they're interested in "staying in the loop" with the applicant base and keeping up with what everyone is saying. As others have mentioned I'm sure they pay close attention to the school specific threads to make sure people are not denigrating their school or spreading misinformation. They want to attract the best quality of applicant possible and keeping people honest about their school should be expected. I don't think there is anything spooky about it.

If SDN was releasing private, or what people assume is private, information to schools you'd find SDN empty in short order with no users and no advertisers.
 
Tutmos said:
As an employer, and knowing that education is subject to many of the same or analogous laws, I'd be EXTREMELY surprised if any adcom attempted to take any action that could be considered negative toward a person's application on the basis of anything they found on this or other semi-anonymous forums. They could certainly ask a person about it and if they acknowledged it was them take some action but a simple IP address match does not identify the applicant. An example would be a shared computer in a fraternity or other shared environment.
Click to expand...

Consider yourself surprised. It's been done.

People give out waaaay more personal information on these semi-anonymous forums than one might think...
 
Let me clear up some stuff. SDN staff members would never give out the IP addresses, email addresses, etc. of any applicant to an adcom. However, from things like mdapps, usernames, people's locations, etc, it would be very very easy for an adcom to identify an applicant. All they'd have to do is find the matching applicant by checking their application files.

I have no doubt that every adcom (well those that care) knows who I am. I'm very identifiable, and I'm ok with that. Sure it's not fair that they can look at see what we have to say about them and other schools, but it's just the way things are. Don't do anything stupid, and you won't get in trouble for it.
 
don't forget current med students, even if they aren't on the adcom, might see something crappy said about their school and want to bring it to someone's attention.

i would!!!
 
Myuu said:
Consider yourself surprised. It's been done.

People give out waaaay more personal information on these semi-anonymous forums than one might think...
Click to expand...


I find it very hard to believe that it was done without some type of admission from the applicant or non-forum verification of the misconduct. If this were not the case what would stop some miscreant premed from destroying any applicant they happen to know by posing as the person here and posting inappropriate material? Adcom members are not ignorant, I think they'd know better than to make stupid assumptions like we're talking about.
 
Tutmos said:
I find it very hard to believe that it was done without some type of admission from the applicant or non-forum verification of the misconduct. If this were not the case what would stop some miscreant premed from destroying any applicant they happen to know by posing as the person here and posting inappropriate material? Adcom members are not ignorant, I think they'd know better than to make stupid assumptions like we're talking about.
Click to expand...

Great, now miscreant premeds have a new idea.

Don't help them with their evil plans.
 
At my New York Medical College Interview, the admissions office directly said they read SDN but look specifically to see if anyone is "talking bad" about it, so play nice and you will all be okay! :thumbup:
 
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