Originally posted by PluckyDuk8
1. We are all non-urm's....my friend who is an M1 this year says his class is 40% white, and of that half of them are male and half are female
Uhh, no. White's may make up only 40% of the class but Asians(Indian/Chinese/Pakistani/Korean/Arab,etc.) comprise perhaps the other 40%. Black/Hispanic take the remaining 20%. Asians are not URMs therefore at least 80% of the class got in for reasons other than that.
2. They simply are getting more higher caliber applicants, for whatever reason
Maybe yes, maybe no. Frankly I think there has been no change in the quality of applicants they are getting that has not also appeared in applicants to other medical schools across the country. All IL residents have always applied to UIC and of course, they do get preference. Since UIC gives strong preference to IL residents (who have always applied to UIC anyway) stronger applicants from out of state would make a negligible difference at best.
3. They are accepting more higher caliber applicants than usual in order to boost their status/stats
This is true to some extent but the bar was actually raised for last year's cycle. There was a slight increase in the MCAT/GPA cutoffs for applicants that they would accept but frankly I don't think they were made ridiculously high. I got in and I don't have ridiculously high stats and I'm white.
4. They are accepting more higher caliber applicants than usual because with the economy as bad as it is this year maybe more of them will decide to go to their state school instead of a private or out of state school
No, the economy argument holds no water because just about everyone takes loans for med school which they defer until they are done training. The cost is not realized until you finish residency at which time the economic conditions will probably be different. Unless you were planning on paying for med school out of pocket, the current economic situation would not make a difference. Plus, with UIC nearing 20k/yr in tuition and fees, it's not the bargain it once used to be.
I think instead of blaming external things for not getting in I think you first need to look in the mirror. More times than not, and I say this as a second time applicant, the problem lies somewhere within your application. Med schools look at a variety of different factors and as a few friends of mine found out, UIC is not the "slam dunk" it may have seemed to be for IL residents with good stats.
I think one of the most critical factors with UIC is timing. Getting your app in ASAP to UIC probably increased your chances for an acceptance exponentially because the class fills up faster than most. Other than that, you just need to realize that once you have several applicants with good stats, the concept of randomness starts to play a role. Perhaps something in you PS or perhaps your recs were not what they were looking for. Another reason may be that your stats were just so good that they felt you would get an acceptance at a much higher ranked school and would not choose to attend UIC. Judging by what happened with the waitlist last year, they are probably being more selective in accepting applicants who would most likely
choose to matriculate at UIC over most other schools. They ended up going very deep into the waitlist last year b/c they accepted too many great applicants that chose to go elsewhere.
I think you need to take a step back and think of the reasons you may have gotten your first acceptance and perhaps some of the problems that might have caused your UIC app to go the way it did. Med schools do not all use the same standards.
But then at the same time I am not taking it personally, again it is a crapshoot.
