Extreme Safety

[rajad10]

Is it ill-advised to choose safety schools with much lower stats than yours? In other words, will they know they're the last place you have in mind because your numbers are so much better and reject you immediately?

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[-Goose-]

Some schools are known to reject applicants with high #s (the one that comes to mind is Rush). I guess their reasoning is that they *know* you wouldn't go there, assuming you have other offers... But I think this is pretty rare. To a certain extent, this whole process is a crapshoot (esp at very competitive schools), so there is no such thing as a 'safety.'

 

[JHUNBC]

Agreed. Applying to med school is truly a crapshoot when it comes to most schools. You'll have friends with lower stats getting interviews when you don't. But you'll also get interviews at a school you may be underqualified for (talking numbers, nothing to do with personality or heart).

BTW, GW is also notorious for not interviewing students who they feel are overqualified.

 

[OSUdoc08]

Is it ill-advised to choose safety schools with much lower stats than yours? In other words, will they know they're the last place you have in mind because your numbers are so much better and reject you immediately?

There is no such thing as a safety school. Go ahead and apply to them.

 

[AmoryBlaine]

There is no such thing as a safety school. I had way high stats and got immediately waitlisted at some not-so-prestigious places.

 

[Will Ferrell]

I'm sure many schools yield-protect, but med school admissions is so tough and they're no real safeties. If you show interest in any school, they'll take you seriously.

 

[Em1]

In many cases, your best odds are at your state school(s), where it's also the cheapest! If your numbers are way higher than your state school's, they won't brush you off as treating them as a safety... they understand you probably want to pay less.

 

[Law2Doc]

Agreed. Applying to med school is truly a crapshoot when it comes to most schools. You'll have friends with lower stats getting interviews when you don't. But you'll also get interviews at a school you may be underqualified for (talking numbers, nothing to do with personality or heart).

BTW, GW is also notorious for not interviewing students who they feel are overqualified.

It's not really a "crapshoot" -- there is a methodology at play other than pure luck (roll of the dice). But having high numerical stats doesn't guaranty admission in any particular school. Schools are looking for a "good fit", and you can be well or poorly fitted to a place regardless of your stats or its rank. As such, I agree that you can't truly deem a school a safety based on the stats.

It should also be noted that some of the lower ranked schools routinely reject folks who come off as arrogant or acting like they are a shoo-in in interviews. As such it's pretty common to see folks who get into some of the top schools getting dinged at the lower ranked ones. And that is different than the small percentage of schools who reject folks that they don't think will come, which appears to happen as well.

 

[JHUNBC]

It's not really a "crapshoot" -- there is a methodology at play other than pure luck (roll of the dice). But having high numerical stats doesn't guaranty admission in any particular school. Schools are looking for a "good fit", and you can be well or poorly fitted to a place regardless of your stats or its rank. As such, I agree that you can't truly deem a school a safety based on the stats.

The good fit argument only works if you've been interviewed at that school. There is very little they can know about you not concerning your grades prior to speaking with you in person. Sure, there are essays and letters of rec, but you can only write so much. Saying I don't fit their "mold", in my opinion, is a bogus argument if you havne't taken the time to speak with me in person.

 

[Law2Doc]

The good fit argument only works if you've been interviewed at that school. There is very little they can know about you not concerning your grades prior to speaking with you in person. Sure, there are essays and letters of rec, but you can only write so much. Saying I don't fit their "mold", in my opinion, is a bogus argument if you havne't taken the time to speak with me in person.

Not so. You can be deemed a "bad fit" based on your PS, ECs etc.
And someone with high numerical stats and the rest of the app boring, generic and clearly just "going thru the motions" is considered a bad fit at a number of schools. Obviously you can know more from an interview, but few schools invite someone in for an interview unless they are genuinely interested. Schools also seek a diverse class, and if you are, say the 200th former IT nontrad they are looking at and you have the worst stats as compared to the rest of that group, they might take a pass.

 

[Hercules022]

Percentage-wise, I had better luck getting interviews from ranked schools than unranked schools. A couple unranked schools I thought I was pretty sure to get an interview at shot me down (GW being one of them). Not at all like undergrad, where if you have good stats the lower schools will line up to throw money at you.

 

[SanDiegoSOD]

I got love (interview offers) from about half of my safety schools. I think applying to these schools is a good investment.