Getting started...

[closertofine]

I'm planning to apply this summer/fall...and I guess I should have started this process earlier, but I'm kind of confused as to how to decide which schools to apply to. I know there are books with statistics about all the schools, but I have no idea where to start...and all those statistics aren't always helpful in figuring out what a school is really like.

I do know of a few local schools and one or two "reach" schools I want to apply to, but otherwise...I'm kind of stuck.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

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[xaelia]

I designed http://mdapplicants.com specifically as a resource for prospective medical students researching schools for application - it offers searchable profiles of past medical school applicants and summaries of applicants to each school.

Let me know if there are any improvements you might like to see on the site.

Good luck!

 

[X]

I have found that certain schools always choose students from certain schools. So see if you can get a list of where students were accepted from your undergrad from the pre-med office. Apply to schools that take a large number of people from your school, while taking into account their avg (GPA, MCAT).

X

 

[VienneseWaltz]

karen44--

When you get interviews, you will need good reasons for having applied to a particular school. I think I got some of my interviews in part because I was able to work my reason for applying into my secondary. Are you interested in a particular specialty or area of research (eg, women's health, cancer)? Is the opportunity to do research or get early clinical experience especially important to you? Just hitting a few Web sites will give you ideas of things you care about in a medical school. I made a preliminary list of about 40 schools that interested me based on location and reputation, then I shortened it based on quality of the emergency medicine training and whether there was a health-policy presence. If you know someone at a particular med school and it interests you in the least, apply there--you already know a little bit more about the school, and you can say in your interview that your friend is so happy there, etc. Case Western, for example, encourages its med students to write letters on behalf of good applicants they know--a friend did this for me.

I don't think you're starting too late. If you start your personal statement soon so that it's polished by the first date to file AMCAS, you will be way ahead of most people. Good luck!

 

[MD-2007-Gal]

What I did:

1) Looked up statistics from previous applicants from my undergrad school, checking the average GPA and MCAT of those who were accepted to each school.

2) Wrote down all schools where these GPA's were within 0.3 of mine, and 5 MCAT points of mine.

3) Added three schools were the average GPAs and MCATs were noticeably lower than mine, to be "more likely" schools. Added three reaches. Made sure all of my state schools were on the list.

4) Elimated based on geography. For me, I didn't want to be too far from home, so I eliminated Northeast schools, plus Washington University in St. Louis (I had read a lot about it, and I liked it).

5) Checked out websites of the various schools, and read about them. There were a few that I could tell right away would not be good for me. For example, I wanted to be in an urban setting, so I eliminated most schools that weren't in a city.

By then, I had about 20 schools, which was a good number of schools for my primary application. When the secondaries started coming, I wound up eliminating 4 more schools, since they just didn't seem like good matches for me, and they weren't my "more likely" schools anyway.

Hope this helps!

 

[DarkChild]

WHOA!!!
YOU HAVENT STARTED APPLYING YET!!! WTF YOU ARE LATE!!!
get your act together!!!!!
j/king
one thing i wish i had paid more attention to this application cycle - where schools are located. there are some cities and some schools located within certain cities that no matter what I wouldnt attend - JHU, Vandy, Duke
so i would definately reccomend that applicants consider location very strongly.
also another thing that was a big factor to me was distance from my home. my job (at the time) was fairly time consuming and not terribly understanding about interview time, so i applied only to schools reasonably close to me.
one other thing - start saving now; dont underestimate the costs of just applying. i've probably spent about a grand on just applications and would have spent another five or six hundred if i didnt get lucky.

 

[VienneseWaltz]

DarkChild makes a really good point about the expense. For every school where you interview, you can expect to spend $30 (AMCAS) + $75 (app fee) + $200 travel expenses (if overnight stay required). And if you get lucky early in the process but aren't really decisive (that is, you get into several schools in, say, November, but won't be able to decide between them until you get your fin. aid package in April), you might have to place several ($100) deposits that you won't get back for a while.

 

[closertofine]

Thanks, you guys. There are some complicating issues for me, though...I have a high GPA, but it's from a state school, and I haven't yet taken the MCAT. And I don't have really any clinical experience yet (i.e. volunteer work), although I'm working on getting some. So I don't have a good idea of which schools will be "reaches" and which in my range...I know I can't expect to get accepted to Ivy-type schools just based on my GPA.

Also, I am not sure where to find the subjective information about each school...for example, how stressful the schedule, how livable the area around the school is, etc...I've tried looking at the schools' own websites, but of course all schools make themselves look about equally good!

Plus, I don't really know what I would like to specialize in... possibly neurology or psychiatry...though I do know I'd like to start clinical work early.

Really, I'm just a bit confused...is there any central resource where I could find this kind of info? (besides here, of course!) The MDapplicants site is helpful, but it's not quite what I'm looking for right now...

Since I'm not taking an MCAT class, I don't hang out with many other pre-meds, so this is one of my only resources for this kind of info...

Thanks again!

 

[VienneseWaltz]

Hi karen44--

I did my undergrad at a state school, too, so I feel your pain. My advice to you is to rock the MCAT (no pressure! ...sorry). Unfortunately, adcoms care a LOT about your undergrad school, so it's on you to prove (via the MCAT) that you have as solid a science preparation as people at other schools. If your science GPA is high, you shouldn't have much trouble on those sections. Verbal Reasoning has the highest correlation with success in the pre-clinical years, so adcoms care a lot about it. If you are weak on that area, spend a lot of time on it.

Someone from my undergrad school is at Wash U right now. I don't know your situation, but she made sure to let adcoms know that she went to a state school b/c she had a scholarship and couldn't afford to go into debt just for undergrad--not b/c she couldn't get in anywhere else. She turned it into a big selling point about how she could choose her med school based on quality of program and not how much more debt it would add.

WRT clinical experience--get some ASAP. I know the MCAT is on your mind right now, but you REALLY need to get some good shadowing experience in this summer. If you can devote your summer to doing something in a clinical setting, do it. You might want to delay your AMCAS long enough (say, late July) so that you can include significant clinical exposure on it. I can't overstate the importance of clinical exposure to adcoms.

WRT getting advice, I would look at the interview feedback feature on this site, which contains interviewees' perceptions of the school. Also, you could hang out in one of the med school forums to get a sense of what the students are like. It's really hard to get a sense of a school from a 3rd party, though--you will have to do that from your interview. All I heard about Hopkins before I interviewed was what monsters JHU students are, then when I got there I found they were so laid back and cool. (OK, maybe I'm a monster, too, but I'm inclined to think it was just rumor-mongering.)

Anyway, sorry for the novella ... Good luck!

 

[DarkChild]

i really think i owe my two acceptances to SDN. i dont hang out with pre-meds either plus i've been out of school for a little while.
using the highly-useful, often maligned, and now defunct (hopefully to return) SEARCH button. for every school i seriously applied to i searched SDN for the schools name and read through about 100 threads literally..
i got a ton of info and the really golden stuff is any inside info you learn about a school and can then turn around and tell the school that thats why you want to go there....
for instance why i like PBL at Cornell was all over my secondary
so search this forum as well as the allopathic, clinical rotations and general residency forums and you will learn a ton.
as with everything on the internet though, take everything with a grain of salt

 

[Adcadet]

check out http://www.amsa.org/resource/cardev/medresults.cfm to help get an inside look at med schools.

Are you taking the April or August MCAT? Please say April, as that will make life much easier.

I wouldn't worry about being at a state school - a good GPA is a good GPA.

Lemme know if you want to see some school's secondary applications (from the 2002-2003 cycle).

 

[Adcadet]

make sure you get a clinical experience that will let you use a supervisor (or whever) for a LOR. That way your clinical experience will be highlighted a bit and may seem larger than it actually is.

 

[Wednesday]

I agree with DarkChild that opinions posted on the internet should be taken with a grain of salt. Even when it comes to that amsa site (link in above post). My school was pretty trashed there by what I can only imagine are bitter, angry students. AND the rankings posted are outdated (they even allude to this in their comments). If you're going to use old posts from SDN to get a feel for a school, make sure the people who are posting actually go there or have been accepted. I have noticed that many people who get waitlisted or rejected have negative things to say. Often their comments are just something horrible their "friend" told them about the school.

It's hard to rate med schools for yourself. I think that a good place to start is location. Then pick a couple of schools you think you'll never get into (you might be suprised) and a couple of schools in places you wouldn't mind living for four years. Another variable to think about is PBL vs. Traditional style. Looking at the list of schools that people from your undergrad got into sounds like a great idea. Talk to your advisor! That's her (or his) job.

 

[Adcadet]

I bought The Princeton Review book on medical schools and simply went through and eliminated all out of state public schools, and the few schools I would not want to attend based on geography. Then I just made sure I had a few reach schools and a few safety schools. I ended up with ~20 schools, which seems pretty typical of SDNers. Also check out USNew's info - they break school's admissions info down by in-state/out of state to allow you to see what your chances are - I remember it seemed like I had a good shot at BU, until I saw that they heavily favor in-state applicants.

 

[VienneseWaltz]

I wouldn't "worry" about being at a state school, either, because there's nothing you can do about it now. If you excelled in every other part of your application, you shouldn't have a problem. So I don't want to frighten you, but at a lot of my top-20-school interviews, I was one of the few applicants from a public school. (A notable exception was Hopkins, which had a great mix. At another school, it seemed to be an issue for my student interviewer and a med student I met.) Two adcom or former adcom members have told me how important reputation of undergrad school is, at least when making first cuts. Look at the roster of a school like Harvard or Duke, and you won't see that many students from state schools. I'm not trying to scare you out of applying to good schools, but you should know that people from Ivy League schools are cut some slack that we state-schoolers won't get.

 

[VienneseWaltz]

I'm probably going to get flamed for that last bit, but it's true.

 

[pathdr2b]

Originally posted by VienneseWaltz
I'm probably going to get flamed for that last bit, but it's true.

Unfortunately and based soely on my experience, you might be onto something here. Not discouragement, but the sad truth

 

[Mutterkuchen]

Originally posted by VienneseWaltz
I'm probably going to get flamed for that last bit, but it's true.

While I think that those with a elite private undergrad degree might have a slight advantage, I really don't think that is as much as others on this thread have suggested. I think that this becomes less important if you went to a "name brand" state school, such as, the University of Missouri or the University of Illinois.

Students that I graduated with at Podunk Missouri State University received acceptances at Hopkins, Wash U, Yale, Emory, Vandy, and others. These are not urban legends, they are people that I know well.

How did they do it? They got solid GPAs, performed well on the MCAT, and most importantly did other, fascinating things outside of class. I think that the best thing about a private school is the number of opportunities that present themselves to the students. State schoolers like myself had to find interesting things to do, rather than being spoonfed opportunities.

Personally I have had 5 interview invites, have been accepted to one school, and think that I will get one at least more acceptance. I declined three of the interviews. Your state school status will be a liability only if you make it one.

Regarding choosing schools to apply to. . . I suggest the US News Ranksing give some insight on the best programs, though do put too much credence in it. The MSAR also provides excellent information. Finally, I used SDN exclusively as my premed advisor. Just remember to filter all information you get here. Some information is wrong.

 

[Moskeeto]

If you have a pre-med health advisor, thats a really good place to start. Mine gave me a ton of info, unfortunately alot of it was bad advice, but some of it really helped. One of the things that she gave me was a list of all the schools that accepted 4 or more applicants from my school last year. that list really helped when deciding which schools to narrow it down to. I only applied to 2 schools that weren't on the list and surprise I got rejected from both. also, i've emailed a couple of people that attend the schools just to get some more info.

Originally posted by VienneseWaltz
...you can expect to spend $30 (AMCAS) + $75 (app fee) + $200 travel expenses (if overnight stay required)...

How in the world are you only paying 200 in travel expenses?!?! I must be missing all the deals. Most of my plane tickets alone are easily over 300 bucks.

 

[Adcadet]

I went to a small, top 50 liberal arts college. Due to it's size and the fact that it only became a nationall-caliber school in the past twenty years, it doesn't have the instant name recognition that many other schools have. I've always been a bit discouraged when people in other states seem to think it's a crap school when in reality it's a good school that's just too small and new to be very well known.

So people at state school's aren't the only ones who may be at a disadvantage when ignorant people pass judgement.

 

[VienneseWaltz]

Acadet--I know what you mean. My school has gotten pretty impressive in the last 10 years, but it's going to be at least 10 more until its reputation catches up. Statistically, it's harder to get into the Honors College than Harvard ...

Moskeeto--We have Southwest in Raleigh-Durham airport, which helps. Also, AirTran has great one-way rates if you have to make a triangle trip somewhere. I managed to stay with people most places I interviewed, so I never had to pay for both hotel and plane except when my husband flew with me to Chicago. And getting rejected from the West Coast schools to which I applied certainly helped cut down on my travel expenses.

JBJ--You're absolutely right that students from not-so-reputable state schools (obviously, I'm not talking about UCLA, UVA, UMich, etc) can get into the top-10 schools--but *everything* else has to be great--MCATs, GPA, clinical experience, personal statement, LOR.

 

[Dr. Lawyer]

Adcadet,

It takes a certain degree of sophistication to know about highly selective prestigious liberal arts colleges. Those in the know know. You'd be surprised how many people hear the names Middlebury and Pomona and think they are polytechnic schools offering your own tool kit upon graduation.

Recently I met a pre-med in my home state who went to a state university, and she could not understand why I was a resident of the same state, but went to college in another one several hundred miles away. Forget not knowing about liberal arts colleges, the concept of going to a "go-away" school where you sleepover was unknown to her!