How do you determine where to apply to?

[estradiol9]

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How do you determine which schools you are going to apply to and where you'll be competitive(as competitive as you can be for medical school)?

I have the MSAR and the LizzyM school selector. I have not taken the MCAT yet though. Do most people apply to schools that have average acceptance stats similar to theirs? And their state schools I suppose?

Also.. I really have no clue how many schools I should be applying to. My GPA is a 3.7. I have a fair amount of various extracurricular activities but no research yet.

 

[aSagacious]

The average applicant applies to ~14 schools, where less confident applicants tend to apply to a greater number. From your total, you might want to break the schools into tiers (safeties, reaches, long shots). I use the LizzyM score to categorize the schools like:

MyScore > Safety + 3
Long Shot > MyScore + 3
Reaches = everything else

Some other common criteria for narrowing down your list might be: OOS acceptance rate, tuition, proximity to friends/family/SO, M3 curriculum, research opportunity.

 

[Medicine4Bruhs]

Start at the bottom and work your way up until you run out of money. I kid, I kid. What I meant to say is only apply to the ivy league schools: harvard, princeton, yale, etc. (not cornell though because everyone knows that's the safety ivy).

 

[tima]

Princeton has no med school, noob.

Start at the bottom and work your way up until you run out of money. I kid, I kid. What I meant to say is only apply to the ivy league schools: harvard, princeton, yale, etc. (not cornell though because everyone knows that's the safety ivy).

 

[aSagacious]

Princeton has no med school, noob.

They must wonder why they always get checks for $100 from random pre-meds every year 🙄.

 

[luckyducky87]

I looked through all the schools and eliminated first by geographical preference... then from the remaining schools I looked at:

~OOS friendliness -- eliminated ones that are <20% or so
~Course req -- there were a couple that required behavioral/social sci that I haven't taken
~School ranks -- made sure to have some schools above; some schools below

I ended up with ~18 schools...

 

[Medicine4Bruhs]

Princeton has no med school, noob.

You bit. Sucka.

 

[tima]

True, you can't trust everyone on the internet. We probably saved others from searching Princeton Medical.

They must wonder why they always get checks for $100 from random pre-meds every year 🙄.

 

[aSagacious]

You bit. Sucka.

If you've been around SDN long enough you'd understand why that statement would seem typical. That's like saying, "zomg i can has med skewl at teh carribean ef i fayled teh mcat? Just kidding"

 

[tima]

To make you happier, you are not the first pre-med to wonder about Princeton Medical. Search on the SDN forums. You can thank me later.

 

[deleted357625]

-OOS acceptance rate; some schools are not OOS friendly and only accept in-state applicants.

-Residency matches: check out the schools match list and see if the school has a consistent match for there students to good programs after med school.

-Location; Def a big factor. Also cost of living in a certain area.

-Cost: obviously cost is a factor

-Grading system of the school: some schools are really laid back the first two years of school pass/fail system for grading etc..

-Your MCAT and GPA: apply smart and don't waste money on schools you know for sure you might not get into, maybe a few schools would be fine but they are a long shot.

-Apply in-state: always the best chance for an acceptance with average stats.

-Look at the medical schools and the affiliated hospitals: If you want to go to school and have a good experience with rotations it's good to go to a med school that's affiliated with a good hospital etc.

There's many ways to narrow down your choice.

 

[MeowMeowCAT]

Long shot schools are nice to apply to. There is always a chance of getting a guy to review your application, so you might get in through the cracks.

 

[Medicine4Bruhs]

More *whooshing* from this guy^^

edit: the brah above torshi (thanks meowcat and torshi)

 

[estradiol9]

Thanks everyone. Very helpful. So is 2-3 a good number of long shot/reach schools to apply to?

Also, is 22 schools too many for an average applicant?

 

[wololololololo]

Not if you're from CA. All our state schools are essentially reaches. And to think, our Kaplan presenter told us that it was a GOOD thing to be from CA.

 

[StephBee]

Here's how I did it:

I went through the MSAR and tabbed every school that had simular stats to mine (in my case, my GPA won't limit my school choice so I only looked at MCAT). I then went through and nixed all the schools with <20% OOS matriculants. From there I looked at location. Got rid of schools in places I honestly wouldn't want to live (Utah, NV, AL, AZ etc). After that I started looking at mission statements to see if I liked what they said. I want to do clinical research, so I looked for larger schools that have affiliated hospitals. I added in a few reach schools that I was really interested in because of their programs (Duke, Vandy, UMich)

In the end, because I'm a reapplicant, I'm applying to 36 schools. I wouldn't ever recommend that many but I might die if I have to do this a third year so I'd rather over apply than under.
I think 15-25 is a good number. Your GPA is decent so it'll come down to what your MCAT score is.

Any other questions, lemmek now! Hope it helped

 

[mvenus929]

I looked through all the schools and eliminated first by geographical preference... then from the remaining schools I looked at:

~OOS friendliness -- eliminated ones that are <20% or so
~Course req -- there were a couple that required behavioral/social sci that I haven't taken
~School ranks -- made sure to have some schools above; some schools below

I ended up with ~18 schools...

This is pretty much what I did, except for the second, I only looked at schools that accepted AP/IB credits for certain courses, because there was no way in hell I was going to take those courses again just for medical school.

GPA and MCAT were not at all helpful for me, since even the top schools had a LizzyM score around mine.

The geographical area was a huge deal to me... I researched areas greatly and only applied places I thought I could stand living for four years.

I ended up with 10 schools, I think.

 

[NickNaylor]

Here's how I did it:

I went through the MSAR and tabbed every school that had simular stats to mine (in my case, my GPA won't limit my school choice so I only looked at MCAT). I then went through and nixed all the schools with <20% OOS matriculants. From there I looked at location. Got rid of schools in places I honestly wouldn't want to live (Utah, NV, AL, AZ etc). After that I started looking at mission statements to see if I liked what they said. I want to do clinical research, so I looked for larger schools that have affiliated hospitals. I added in a few reach schools that I was really interested in because of their programs (Duke, Vandy, UMich)

In the end, because I'm a reapplicant, I'm applying to 36 schools. I wouldn't ever recommend that many but I might die if I have to do this a third year so I'd rather over apply than under.
I think 15-25 is a good number. Your GPA is decent so it'll come down to what your MCAT score is.

Any other questions, lemmek now! Hope it helped

This is more or less the process I used as well. Screening first by numbers and location can (hopefully) get you a list that is more manageable and amenable to getting more information on each school. From there you can cut things out that don't have things you're looking for (e.g., P/F, certain dual degrees, etc.) or have things that you particularly like.

I will say, though, that I didn't really know what to look for until after I had been on a few interviews. You just have to do the best you can with the limited information that you have when choosing schools.

 

[kpcrew]

I mostly picked the schools in new york out of convenience. They're all good schools and I won't have to pay a ton of money for airfare if I'm invited for interviews.

 

[estradiol9]

I mostly picked the schools in new york out of convenience. They're all good schools and I won't have to pay a ton of money for airfare if I'm invited for interviews.

I live in northern NJ so I think I'm going to apply to all the NY/NJ/Philly schools and probably MD/DC/VA right off the bat because those are all locations I am perfectly content with living in. 👍

Once I take my MCAT I guess I will weed out schools that I may or may not have a shot in I guess depending on how well I do.

I would rather over apply then under apply. I really only want to apply to medical school once.