How many secondaries and interviews does one receive on average?

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Nintendraw

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Preferably as a percentage so that respondents don't have to disclose the precise number of schools they applied to (unless they want to). I have no idea where or when I heard "expect ~66% secondaries", but my secondary receipt rate has been closer to 80-90% according to the table I made just now, so just wondering what the new stats are.

(Sorry if this has been asked already for this year!)
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Receiving 66% doesn't sound accurate. Most schools send automatic secondaries or have extremely low cutoffs. After receiving them, a few people won't send in a couple of them. Maybe that's where that 66% number is coming from.
 
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I think the only secondary I didn't get was from a UC school, and I was a middle-of-the-road applicant. How many interviews you get is highly variable. I think the old average was one acceptance for every three interviews.
 
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Yeah I had a couple of friends receive secondaries before they were even marked verified on their application...so expect to get a good chunk of secondaries. A lot of med schools will just give out secondaries to everyone for the sole purpose of the $$.
 
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CharlieBillings said:
Well I don't have data but I'll share my stuff:

3.8/35 (35~~517)

Secondaries from every school I applied to, including all UCs except UCSF (did not apply).

IIs: 3 MD and 3 DO (applied to 8 DO schools with all secondaries received). MD IIs were roughly 2 mid to lower tier, and 1 mid to mid-upper tier. Based on my limited DO school knowledge I would say 1 DO II was in the upper tier of DO schools, and the other 2 were fine.
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But how many apps?
 
CharlieBillings said:
Well I don't have data but I'll share my stuff:

3.8/35 (35~~517)

Secondaries from every school I applied to, including all UCs except UCSF (did not apply).

IIs: 3 MD and 3 DO (applied to 8 DO schools with all secondaries received). MD IIs were roughly 2 mid to lower tier, and 1 mid to mid-upper tier. Based on my limited DO school knowledge I would say 1 DO II was in the upper tier of DO schools, and the other 2 were fine.
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With such great numbers, was there any particular reason why you decided to apply to 8 DO schools?
 
I got secondaries from every school I applied to.

I got interviews from 47% of them.

Sometimes it takes a while, though - I got some secondaries the business day after verification and others over a month later. I'd have to check my spreadsheet for the exact dates and I'm too lazy - but anyway it took a while. Likewise for interviews. Some fairly quickly, then I thought I was done, then some surprise!requests at the end of the interview season.

Also, some emails went to my spam folder (including the secondary for the school to which I will be matriculating!) so always a good idea to check it periodically.
 
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Nintendraw said:
Preferably as a percentage so that respondents don't have to disclose the precise number of schools they applied to (unless they want to). I have no idea where or when I heard "expect ~66% secondaries", but my secondary receipt rate has been closer to 80-90% according to the table I made just now, so just wondering what the new stats are.

(Sorry if this has been asked already for this year!)
Click to expand...
Keep in mind that secondaries are often a tax on the hopelessly optimistic, if not pathologically clueless.
 
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As others have already said, secondaries are pretty much guaranteed at most schools (with a few exceptions) if you have reasonable numbers. I got secondaries from every school I applied to.

The average MD applicant receives 3 interview invitations. Of the ~40% of the applicant pool who are then accepted to medical school, half of them only get into one.
 
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Thanks for the responses, everyone! So the 66% I heard whenever ago was way off unless it refers to response times. (No secondaries went to my spam box, oddly enough.) Interesting that the commonest number of received interviews is 1 or 4-5. I only hope that interview count doesn't apply to me because things held up my MD app and all of my interviews are DO right now.
 
Most schools send secondaries to everyone. Secondary fees are a good source of revenue for the admissions office. Interviews are much harder to come by - the average number of interviews per applicant is much lower and the number of acceptances per applicant is much lower than that as well. Top schools that do screen prior to the secondary stage include UCSF, Mayo, and Vandy, among others.
 
This depends on your #s, school list, and a number of variables. Assuming an applicant is competitive (512+, 3.65+), the rough percentage of interviews she/he will receive is 12.5% of the total amount applied to.
 
I applied to 31 schools and received 7 II (mostly in NYS) with a cGPA of 3.72, sGPA of 3.76, and 516 MCAT (very unbalanced). That being said, though, I applied to a lot of low-yield schools (G-town, GW, NYMC, etc.) and schools where I didn't necessarily fit their mission. At the end of the day, however, I am getting to go to one of my top choice schools, so life does work out!
 
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