Originally posted by sandflea:
•right, rxfudd--i totally acknowledged that that was what you had already said. BUT, if there is an equation, and unless you are totally sure that GPA and MCAT are the *only* things that factor into this equation (without anything else), then there is no use speculating what combination of GPA and MCAT will get someone a secondary if there are other factors involved that may compensate for a low GPA/MCAT or pull down the effect of a high GPA/MCAT. there is *especially* no use speculating what combination will get someone an interview, since we've already acknowledged that there are many other elements involved and none of us know exactly how, meaning, none of us know what the equation is. that's all i was trying to say. i do know that UIC ranks their waitlist but i forget how they do this, whether it's by quartile or into thirds or what, and that they can give you an idea of what your chances of being pulled off the waitlist are after mid-may.
i'm not trying to show you up, rxfudd--you're the UIC undergrad and thus the expert here. 😀 i was just sharing what i knew and sorry if i was repeating what was already stated here.•
Hey, all is well - we're both right - I was just speculating to give others an example of how they do things.
For the record, here is what is considered at each stage of the process, officially, from the mouth of the dean of admissions himself (I even sat there as he crunched my numbers to see if I'd get a secondary):
To get a secondary: GPA/MCAT only
To get an interview: Essays, extracurrics, awards, experiences, etc. These are given numeric scores and added to the previous number (the "to get a secondary" number).
To get accepted: Interview - this is given a numeric score and added to the previous number (the "to get an interview" number).
Your numeric score at this point is compared to their cut-off score for acceptance.
Yes, UIC does rank waitlisters, but when I talked to the adcom in July, he told me that hardly any people get off the waitlist. He basically told me that it is a bad place to be. In fact, they admitted 40 people more than they could handle last year because their final cut-off score was low enough that too many people ended up with acceptance-level scores, so you can imagine just how bad being on the waitlist was.
This year, they are increasing their final numeric cut-off score for acceptance ever so slightly so that the same problem does not occur. He told me that since the increase is made according to last years numbers, they may inadvertantly increase too much, in which case being on a waitlist this year gives everyone a much better prognosis than in previous years. However, the fact that they are increasing their magic number means that we all have to be a little bit more qualified this year than in previous years.
