Info Slowdown

[CRAZYTERP]

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So I hope this applies to more than just a few peeps out there...

Has anyone else noticed a slow down in infro from schools. I had all my apps done by the first week of September and heard back for five interviews within 5 weeks but since then I have spent the last month or so with no news. My app is completed everywhere, but I havent heard anything from a ton of schools, including Pitt, Emory, Tufts, Loyola, Northwestern, UVA, Dartmouth, NYU, Mt Sinai, and a few others. I wouldn't be worried if I didn't have friends whose apps wwere in months after me and already got their invites.

The point is, for anyone who has already gone through this process, do the invites tend to come all at once, I mean are there various rounds or times of year you can expoect to hear, kind of like when they say you will be notified by jan if u are accepted kinda thing? Just wondering what you all think.

And If anyone thinks I am stressing out too much please tell me.

Peace out,
CT

 

[jwin]

crazyterp

i have experienced the exact same thing. when my app was complete i heard back from 4 schools within 2 weeks and i have not heard a thing from any other school since (the past 6 weeks). i still have not heard from lots of other schools; i think that i am pretty much done interviewing. i think that i might get 1 or 2 more late interviews if i am fortunate but i think the bulk of interviews are done.

this is a seperate topic, but i have not heard from any of my "safety" schools which has been a surprise. i applied to around 5 schools with more average numbers and have not heard from any of them.

 

[indigoblue22]

I think it might depend on the schools you apply to and your application - I applied last year and got most of my interviews within two months or so and not much after that. But I have no idea if that was normal at all.

Five interviews in five weeks is great - there's not much you can do with the other schools but wait it out. A lot of schools interview until the spring, so there's plenty of time...

maybe someone else has actual helpful info, I just remember the stress of applying pretty well and wanted to say that the rush of interviews then sudden drop seems normal to me. of course, your mileage may vary. 🙂

 

[batman123]

Originally posted by indigoblue22
I applied last year and got most of my interviews within two months or so and not much after that.

Same here... most of my interviews were in Sept/Oct, and I've heard from only one school all of Nov

 

[CRAZYTERP]

I guess you guys are probably right, I have seen the same trend with a lot of my friends. I think it might also have to do with the fact that a lot of school are just now sending out there first round of acceptances and will probably wait until after they here back from students to give out more interviews. I know I cannot complaing, I have had a bunch of interviews and I believe they went well, but I just hate the waiting. I don't check my email every five minutes anymore, but I still get that tinge of pain whenever I go through 80 pieces of mail for my family and nothing in it is for me accept the new J Crew catolog.
-CT

PS-I hope everyone had a great turkey day!

 

[ComplexPuzzle]

I totally agree. I had a burst of activity and now it is all but dead. The only good thing that has happened in the past month is a request from UCSF to complete a secondary. Other than that the well is dry. 🙁 Is this a sign of things to come or are the schools really busy and waiting till Xmas to show me some love. I hope so.

 

[CRAZYTERP]

oK so I do on SDN and chastise the schools for making us wait and what happens today, I got an invite from Miami! Who said bitching and moaning would get you nowhere?

 

[athena21]

congrats CRAZYTERP! It's a good sign. But, as of now, I'm afraid to check the mailbox--the rejections are starting to roll on in. 🙁

 

[CRAZYTERP]

Yee of lil faith. Cmon now, you can't think like that. Although I do twend to think my mail man is not dropping any small envelopes off to my house anymore. I probably got rejected from 10 schools and don't even know it yet! Is anyone else a lil worried that part of our fate rests with the United States Postal Service?

 

[serge23]

Originally posted by CRAZYTERP
Yee of lil faith. Cmon now, you can't think like that. Although I do twend to think my mail man is not dropping any small envelopes off to my house anymore. I probably got rejected from 10 schools and don't even know it yet! Is anyone else a lil worried that part of our fate rests with the United States Postal Service?

yea i hear ya....I have nightmares that the USPS may lose that accpetance letter and I will never know about it and when I find out, it will be too late because I missed the deadline to respond... but I have faith in the USPS.....

 

[pAkhtmAn]

I got three interview invites in 3 weeks, and since then I have heard nothing. I completed most my apps in mid-October. I am still waiting to hear from a host of other schools, some 11 to be exact. I don't know if I should start worrying yet. I still have to hear from a whole bunch of schools, and from what I know, schools, like GWU, Northwestern, Tufts, BU, UPitt, and others take a heck of a lot of time to review your app once its complete. I don't think we're out of the game yet.

 

[X]

This one dude applied to lots of schools two years ago, he had a couple of interviews and never heard back from one school. So finally he called them and they said they had sent him an acceptance letter but he never replied back so they went to the waiting list....ouch.

X
ps....i am kidding, relax.

 

[medicnas]

Originally posted by serge23
yea i hear ya....I have nightmares that the USPS may lose that accpetance letter and I will never know about it and when I find out, it will be too late because I missed the deadline to respond... but I have faith in the USPS.....

So...I've got a true story for y'all:

Famous alumnae from my college (actually, on the board now) applied to Temple med school....interviews...waits.
....
January
waits....
waits....
February
calls...Temple: Still pending decision.
....
This goes on for months. Finally she gets fed up, applies to a grad program, gets her MBA from Harvard and starts a company...company makes herself rich and famous doing stuff with cord blood.

Turns out much much later that she called Temple one last time. Well, lo and behold: she actually had been accepted in May and the post office had lost her letter.

Of course this was back when dinosaurs roamed the earth...and they didn't have neat ways of checking online, and the whole process was even more arcane than it is now.

I guess there are two really important things here:
1) Have a backup. It could turn out much better than medicine!
2) Never stop calling...and be really nice to your mail deliverer. 🙂

BTW: Incase you were ever wondering, mail delivery people are federal employees (duh) and therefore cannot accept cash gifts. So, if you are looking for a good Christmas present for your mail dude...think fruitcake or something and a card. Just one of those useless bits of info that might actually do you some good. 🙂

 

[athena21]

so many people i've talked to are saying how they're pretty much done with interviews! what the heck! i know schools interview through february and march, but from other threads it looks like most of jan and some of feb are already filled up! Does that mean we have to get our invites by the new year to even book a slot? sigh...just worrying as usual...

 

[CRAZYTERP]

i wouldn't sweat it too much. I had a lot of friends who interviewed all the way up until may. I know ti probably isn't what you want to hear, but a lot of people still get interviews late in the year and a decent of those who are waitlisted will get in as well. I know I started this thread, but after speaking with a lot of friends/med students who are home for the holiday, it seems like u still hear from schools up until the spring.

 

[ComplexPuzzle]

how does one go about calling schools? what do you say and stuff? my online status checks say my application is complete but would calling help the prcess along.

 

[kaos]

Won't somebody PLEAASE send me SOMETHING useful! I'm tired of being stuck between "application complete" and "acceptance/rejection/waitlist!" Anybody? 🙁

 

[athena21]

well, i sent a couple of letters of interest to get the ball rolling...the rejections came rolling in right away. hehe...

 

[Nefertari]

Yeah, I have been patiently waiting til now, but it's been depressing to see November come & go w/o much action. 🙁 Thank god for the holiday distractions!

Last year, several SDNers were interviewed Feb-April & did well. Also, the hold & waitlists will move once the early birds receive their favorite acceptances & w/draw from other schools. We just have to get better at the waiting game.

 

[CRAZYTERP]

Originally posted by ComplexPuzzle
how does one go about calling schools? what do you say and stuff? my online status checks say my application is complete but would calling help the prcess along.

I would suggest calling and basically just asking if you can find out your status. I called most of my shcools and half just told me my app was complete, the other half said that I was on hold or some variation of hold and one even toldme i had an interview over email. So you really have nothing to lose, and for some schools I heard they want you to call them bc they have so many applications that they lose track of people very easily. The only hard part is waiting for 20 seconds when the secretary looks up your file, that will always be nerve racking!

 

[PrincessCKNY]

I was pretty much experiencing the same until my Penn state invite for interview last week. I figure the holidays are a big reason for the slowdown. One school I called (don't remember which) said that they didn't interview Dec 13-Jan X. Just a thought...