Goro's guide to the app process-2015 edition

Get Your Med School Admissions Questions Answered!
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Some schools do not allow for pre-reqs from CCs, others don't care. There's no rhyme nor reason to it. Just do well and you'll be fine.



itsonlytheBeginning said:
I am new here. Next year I will have to go to a CC because I really did not enjoy my first year in a no name school my questions are what classes would i have to take?
If i spend 2 years studying / doing community service and shadowing doctors and transfer to an ivy school and do great there do i have a lesser chance of getting into med school because i went to a CC or no? or should i keep going to the school but i wont be able to do the community service and shadow the doctors? And we dont really get a good amount of money for research also
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@Goro

Goro said:
Some tips for you. Grab a cup of coffee, pull up a chair.
  • Applying early is good. The earlier, the better. By September, it's probably too late for MD schools, but FYI, the DO cycle is longer (up to Dec or even Jan!) I'll make some DO-specific posts in the pre-osteopathic forum later.
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I'm applying through my school's committee, and just from projections if I apply/submit my AMCAS today(I'm basically all ready), they won't get my LOR in until Early Sept, Late Aug or Mid Aug. I believe I'm a fairly competitive applicant but is this late committee later enough of a reason to just apply next year instead? To make sure my committee sends it out by the end of July?

Thank you!!!
 
I believe that some schools will cut you some slack on LORs, knowing that pre-med committees take thier sweet time, especially if your school is a feeder to a med school(s).

Yangeranggg said:
@Goro



I'm applying through my school's committee, and just from projections if I apply/submit my AMCAS today(I'm basically all ready), they won't get my LOR in until Early Sept, Late Aug or Mid Aug. I believe I'm a fairly competitive applicant but is this late committee later enough of a reason to just apply next year instead? To make sure my committee sends it out by the end of July?

Thank you!!!
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HybridEarth said:
You are an amazing person.
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SDN should pay him to be on here...................maybe they do! Just a thought! Unbelievable advice! Goro is the man! On my yearbook page when I graduate from Medical school, I am going to mention you! lol Looking ahead but hey, it is GOING to happen!
 
silvermecca said:
SDN should pay him to be on here...................maybe they do! Just a thought! Unbelievable advice! Goro is the man! On my yearbook page when I graduate from Medical school, I am going to mention you! lol Looking ahead but hey, it is GOING to happen!
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Med schools do yearbooks? My UG doesn't even do it.
 
UNMedGa said:
Med schools do yearbooks? My UG doesn't even do it.
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My father displays his proudly!!!! lol Maybe in the years that have gone by, the tradition is long gone at some schools. I have been thinking for years what I was going to say! (Some good things, some bad!)
 
I'd be happy if you just end up being one of my students!

silvermecca said:
SDN should pay him to be on here...................maybe they do! Just a thought! Unbelievable advice! Goro is the man! On my yearbook page when I graduate from Medical school, I am going to mention you! lol Looking ahead but hey, it is GOING to happen!
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Goro said:
I'd be happy if you just end up being one of my students!
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Just checked and my DO school STILL has yearbooks. In four years, (God willing) somewhere EAST of St. Louis, your "name" will be mentioned on my page. lol Right after my family etc. Might even have my picture taken with our own (three legged black) rescued cat! You have given me the best advice on this site My own professionals in my family would sometimes dismiss my questions, concerns etc and say ....................go ask Goro! I think they were relieved to have you on here!
 
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I used my PS as a tool to explain why I got bad grades, but still answered the question of "why medicine?" As in, I didn't focus on my short pitfall, but rather a motivator to why I want to become a physician.
 
If someone makes of list of med schools that don't accept CC credits, you would e a complete life saver. Please post?
 
I just want to encourage people who are applying "later," (September, for example) to take their chances if they have well-put-together application and have pre-written many of their secondaries. Sure, applying earlier probably gives you an advantage to many schools, but at the interviews I have attended thus far, I have encountered many students who didn't submit their applications to schools until late September/October and had interviews at a large number of schools, and even some with acceptances by November. In fact, I received multiple interview invitations from schools where I submitted the secondary application in mid-September, and only 1 from schools submitted before then.

There are some schools that make their decisions early (Univ of Pitt, for example), but it's entirely possible to get into a great school if applying in September, and possibly even later.

I say this because I was personally discouraged from submitting certain secondaries by the time October reached around because I read too much SDN and though my chances would be too minimal. It's not a major regret, because I still have a few interview invites, but if I could go back, I would have submitted those secondaries in October despite how late I finished writing them.

Of course, if you're on the fence about applying, then it might be a good idea to delay your application by a year and make it as best as possible... but if you think you're in good shape, go ahead and apply even if you're a bit "late" according to SDN standards.
 
When you wish you saw this prior to applying…. but somehow you still made it out with some acceptances and II. Early Christmas miracle.

I will be printing out and gifting this list to so many.

Thank you Saint Goro.
 
Goro said:
If you do well in a SMP/post-bac (GPA >3.6 AND have a MCAT > 33), then there are med schools that reward reinvention, even if your cGPA is <3.4! Search for my other posts for lists of those.
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Wondering which schools reward for this.
 
Based upon reports from successful SDNers,

BU
Albany
NYMC
Case
U Miami
Your state school
Duke
UCSF
Columbia
Vandy
Rosy Franklin
Drexel
Any DO school

EDIT: add

Tulane
Dartmouth
GWU
Tufts

whatsupdr said:
Wondering which schools reward for this.
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Last edited:
Go through SMP websites and you will see people accepted to some outstanding medical schools

Boston U MAMS SMP: http://www.bumc.bu.edu/gms/mams-gra...admitted-to-the-following-us-medical-schools/
Vanderbilt
Pitt
U Chicago
UCLA
Michigan
Northwestern
Mt Sinai
NYU
USC
Emory
Duke
Columbia
Case Western

Eastern Virginia: http://www.evms.edu/education/masters_programs/medical_masters_program/faqs/
UVA
UNC
UCSF

Tufts: http://publichealth.tufts.edu/~/media/PHPD/PHPD PDFs/Academics/Professional Schools MBS Students Have Been Accepted To.pdf
Case Western
Boston U
Duke
Emory
Mt Sinai
Northwestern
Ohio State
All UC schools(including UCSF)
Pitt
Rochester
Yale
Vanderbilt

Cincinnati SMP: https://med.uc.edu/msinphysiology/alumni/meet-the-class-of-2013
The vast majority of grads go to US MD schools. There are numerous grads every single year that go to Cincinnati and Ohio State from here


Georgetown: https://smp.georgetown.edu/alumni
The vast majority of years at least one person ends up at one of the following
Case Western
USC
Emory
UVA
UTSA
Ohio State
There even is a Vanderbilt matriculant from a couple years ago.

So as you can see, out of the big name SMP programs, you can find someone who has gotten into a large number of top 20 schools. Be it UChicago, Yale, Michigan, Northwestern, Mt Sinai, Duke, Pitt, NYU, Vanderbilt, UCSF etc. If you look hard enough, you can probably find someone who turned it around and got into the school you are looking for(I have a friend who is an SMP grad getting ready for his Harvard interview as we speak).
 
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gonnif said:
I would add, surprisingly, Mayo and Univ of Pittsburgh. I have had nontrads with weak early academic work followed by superior later work accepted by them
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Interestingly, not that it really means anything but I didn't see a single Mayo matriculant out of the list of SMPs that I looked at.

UChicago, Yale and NYU came up. Pitt, Northwestern, Duke, Columbia and Vanderbilt came up repeatedly. And it seems like there are people who did SMPs admitted to schools like Case Western, Emory, USC, UVA, Ohio State every single year. I guess it has more to do with Mayo having a really small class size than anything else.
 
gonnif said:
Most of the non trads I deal with dont do SMPs or even formal post baccs. They are reinvented in terms usually of having early bad grades/degrees and years later go back back and do well
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Well one question I guess worth asking is for these non-trads your speaking of are these early bad grades in science classes/pre reqs? I think there's a differnece between someone with a bad cGPA and bad sGPA getting into top schools vs someone with a bad cGPA but who because they never took science classes early on didnt have their sGPA affected. Then later when they re-invented themselves, they did well in their pre-reqs and their sGPA is high.

Having said that, clearly there is evidence of both types of people, the low early cGPA and the low early sGPA who have been able to re-invent themselves enough to generate interest from top schools.
 
Goro said:
Based upon reports from successful SDNers,

BU
Albany
NYMC
Case
U Miami
Your state school
Duke
UCSF
Columbia
Vandy
Rosy Franklin
Drexel
Any DO school

EDIT: add

Tulane
Dartmouth
GWU
Tufts
Click to expand...

@Goro, my state school is U of Colorado, do they reward re-intervention?
 
Goro said:
Some med schools accept CC credits, some don't. There's no rhyme nor reason to it. Again, MSAR is useful in telling you who does, and who doesn't take the coursework.
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But they'll still consider your AMCAS GPA if it includes CC courses right?


Also, what happens if your Committee Letter (with all your letters) come in late? Like August/September?
 
Yes, they will. I was just perusing MSAR and found that Baylor, which used to NOT accept CC pre-reqs, now does! In fact, a random sampling found no schools turning down CC pre-reqs (online coursework is still frowned upon).

Adcoms are used to committee LORs being late. The wise @LizzyM has discussed this in previous posts very eloquently.


AirplaneFruit said:
But they'll still consider your AMCAS GPA if it includes CC courses right?


Also, what happens if your Committee Letter (with all your letters) come in late? Like August/September?
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A belated THANK YOU Goro for your advice going in to last year...extremely helpful to say the absolute least, incredibly essential to say the most!
 
Thanks for this guide, it's extremely helpful. What are your thoughts on the effect of 1 weak LOR when you have 3-4 really strong ones? @Goro
 
What happens if the only schools you want to attend are in California? :meh:😳😵

P.S. The word winnow is so cool!
 
If the rest of the app is other wise strong, it shouldn't be an issue. Bad LORs are rare. Weak ones at my school tend to sink borderline candidates.

CousinEddie said:
Thanks for this guide, it's extremely helpful. What are your thoughts on the effect of 1 weak LOR when you have 3-4 really strong ones? @Goro
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Then you'd better have UCSF/Stanford stats and ECs!
Technology said:
What happens if the only schools you want to attend are in California? :meh:😳😵

P.S. The word winnow is so cool!
Click to expand...
 
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For a URM, being < the 10% ile is OK. But one still has to be realistic. A GPA M< 3.2 is problematic, ditt0 an MCAT < 500. No med school does a URM (or any other candidate) any favors if there is a high risk of the person failing out of med school.



rgg12b said:
@Goro so I saw that a general rule of thumb for choosing schools is to have stats above its 10th percentile. Does this change for a URM applicant?If so then how?
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Goro said:
For a URM, being < the 10% ile is OK. But one still has to be realistic. A GPA M< 3.2 is problematic, ditt0 an MCAT < 500. No med school does a URM (or any other candidate) any favors if there is a high risk of the person failing out of med school.
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Okay thanks! So how many reach schools would you recommend a URM should apply to? Don't want to sell myself short nor apply to too many.
 
Goro said:
I think 20-25 is a good number. One has to consider the time it takes to write secondaries.
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Do you mean 20-25 total schools or 20-25 reach schools?
 
Goro said:
  • -If it appears that you're avoiding your UG school's rigorous weeding courses by taking them at CCs, then that's going to raise some eyebrows.
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Would it look weird if I took summer courses two consecutive summers (probably 4/5 total courses) at another 4-yr state school in my hometown? I got started late, but the Summer-session university is substantially easier, and the AdComms will probably know that.

Something to lose sleep over?
 
No and no. If you think summer courses are easier, you didn't take Physics I with Dr Pavalov at my UG school. I dropped the course on the first day! Histology with Dr Wilderman was no picnic either, but I managed an A there.


timetraveling said:
Would it look weird if I took summer courses two consecutive summers (probably 4/5 total courses) at another 4-yr state school in my hometown? I got started late, but the Summer-session university is substantially easier, and the AdComms will probably know that.

Something to lose sleep over?
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