Med School Application Database

[skaai]

First, allow me to apologize if this topic has been covered, or worse, done to death.
I did spend some time looking for this and failed to find it, thus my grudging desire to do it myself.
But if you find someone has done it, or is doing it, please let me know by sending me a few links,
(I'd still rather not do it if someone has done it).


I want to create a small database to centralize your medical school application workflow.
Goals (all of these initial features will either be bare-bones, or some might not even exist in the first version):

• Software must be cross-platform (Win/mac/Linux or cloud-based). all code will be freely available and open-source. I include some pros and cons of each that I can think of, and as for security, I believe both can be nearly identical if best practices are used (some may disagree, and we can discuss this).
  
  • local: You can keep everything on your machine. More programming work in some ways, and security depends on the user entirely (this sounds good, but in practice, is usually inferior to cloud-based since cloud-based often have best practices to limit damage). Also may be more limited in options or at least one platform might have more stuff than another (think Microsoft Office on win and mac).
    
  • cloud: You interface with a browser. More options, including connecting to other apps/services. Security-wise, I like the LastPass way, where user data is only unencrypted locally while the browser is open and otherwise exists encrypted so a hack on the cloud does not endanger data.
• Enter schools you apply to, and most critical deadlines: each school has idiosyncrasies in the workflow and eventually I want to account for all possible, but at first it might be best to focus on the factors most common to all schools.
  
• Private and secure: depending on the platform (local or cloud) there are best practices to do this. I know many and a discussion of those would be too long, so for now, just know I am aware and want to insure this is a part of the database.
• Connected: my first thought is connecting to google calendar so you have reminders. I'm sure we can plug into tons of APIs, but... I must keep it simple if it has any hopes of making it to v 1.0.
  
• Extensible: to allow for much more to be added (as time permits)

There is so much more I want to do, but in the interests of having a working model by the end of the year, I want to keep it as simple and bare-bones as possible.

I'm sure others have done some of this already, so I ask you for the following:

• Send me links of what others have done: if someone has done all I plan on doing, we can just go there and avoid the pain of inventing the wheel.
• Send me links of any similar projects or ways some of you manage this: if nobody has done a centralized program like I did, I think the best way to do it is to see how all of you manage this task. This gives me an idea of the most efficient way you do it, and a clue as to how such a program should be laid out.
• Some important considerations? There are always things I probably didn't think about. The sooner I know them (and either deal with them or avoid them) the better.
  
• Anyone interested in being a guinea pig? I expect to have something very bare-bones by the end of the year.

My goal isn't so much to make life easier for the class of 2017, but to make something that might be useful for those in future classes. I am an old computer guy who knows all the old-school languages and some of the web-based ones, so I can do either implementation. I know databases too, but I'm not some hyper guru in any of these areas! I'm just competent.

So any feedback on this, whether with links, and/or votes would be so helpful!


p.s. Also, as you can tell from my history, I'm a very long-time member, but almost never posted. My own path to medical school has been torturous and tortuous; I value my own privacy highly, mostly because I feel insecure of my qualifications for med school when I see many whiz kids with amazing qualifications. I add this in case you feel my rarity here means this posting is a joke. I leave it to you to decide.

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[libertyyne]

First, allow me to apologize if this topic has been covered, or worse, done to death.
I did spend some time looking for this and failed to find it, thus my grudging desire to do it myself.
But if you find someone has done it, or is doing it, please let me know by sending me a few links,
(I'd still rather not do it if someone has done it).


I want to create a small database to centralize your medical school application workflow.
Goals (all of these initial features will either be bare-bones, or some might not even exist in the first version):

• Software must be cross-platform (Win/mac/Linux or cloud-based). all code will be freely available and open-source. I include some pros and cons of each that I can think of, and as for security, I believe both can be nearly identical if best practices are used (some may disagree, and we can discuss this).
  • local: You can keep everything on your machine. More programming work in some ways, and security depends on the user entirely (this sounds good, but in practice, is usually inferior to cloud-based since cloud-based often have best practices to limit damage). Also may be more limited in options or at least one platform might have more stuff than another (think Microsoft Office on win and mac).
    
  • cloud: You interface with a browser. More options, including connecting to other apps/services. Security-wise, I like the LastPass way, where user data is only unencrypted locally while the browser is open and otherwise exists encrypted so a hack on the cloud does not endanger data.
• Enter schools you apply to, and most critical deadlines: each school has idiosyncrasies in the workflow and eventually I want to account for all possible, but at first it might be best to focus on the factors most common to all schools.
  
• Private and secure: depending on the platform (local or cloud) there are best practices to do this. I know many and a discussion of those would be too long, so for now, just know I am aware and want to insure this is a part of the database.
• Connected: my first thought is connecting to google calendar so you have reminders. I'm sure we can plug into tons of APIs, but... I must keep it simple if it has any hopes of making it to v 1.0.
  
• Extensible: to allow for much more to be added (as time permits)

There is so much more I want to do, but in the interests of having a working model by the end of the year, I want to keep it as simple and bare-bones as possible.

I'm sure others have done some of this already, so I ask you for the following:

• Send me links of what others have done: if someone has done all I plan on doing, we can just go there and avoid the pain of inventing the wheel.
• Send me links of any similar projects or ways some of you manage this: if nobody has done a centralized program like I did, I think the best way to do it is to see how all of you manage this task. This gives me an idea of the most efficient way you do it, and a clue as to how such a program should be laid out.
• Some important considerations? There are always things I probably didn't think about. The sooner I know them (and either deal with them or avoid them) the better.
  
• Anyone interested in being a guinea pig? I expect to have something very bare-bones by the end of the year.

My goal isn't so much to make life easier for the class of 2017, but to make something that might be useful for those in future classes. I am an old computer guy who knows all the old-school languages and some of the web-based ones, so I can do either implementation. I know databases too, but I'm not some hyper guru in any of these areas! I'm just competent.

So any feedback on this, whether with links, and/or votes would be so helpful!


p.s. Also, as you can tell from my history, I'm a very long-time member, but almost never posted. My own path to medical school has been torturous and tortuous; I value my own privacy highly, mostly because I feel insecure of my qualifications for med school when I see many whiz kids with amazing qualifications. I add this in case you feel my rarity here means this posting is a joke. I leave it to you to decide.

What problem are you trying to solve here? Keeping track of secondary and submission deadlines? Because that shouldn't be a real problem for most applicants as they should apply and complete asap.

 

[gizmoo]

I like that idea and I do think it can be difficult to keep track of secondary / submission deadlines -- I have a google spreadsheet I set up for myself that has all of the info for each school I applied to (e.g. date I got a secondary, due date, link to login, username/password for portal, etc.) so this sounds like a more elegant way to accomplish the same thing

 

[ChrisMack390]

The "due date" for medical school applications could not be more irrelevant. Some of them have not passed yet as of today - that doesn't mean its a good idea to apply to medical schools today!!!

 

[skaai]

Thank you for your quick response.
you pointed out an important point: is this even an issue to many? maybe it isn't precisely because most/all applicants do what is needed as soon as they get notice.
But I applied to about 20 med schools and like many of you, have a crazy schedule. The fact each school has different deadlines, processes, and things to keep in mind makes keeping track of them so inefficient. My ultimate goal would be to solve this problem by creating a database that you add all relevant info and it can do things such as:

• initial application: since I thought this might be more helpful for future applicants (since most here are done with some aspects), they might add schools they want to apply and enter the requirements.
  
• overview: where you see the most time-urgent matters and what you need for each.

I noticed that I spent much more time than I needed to, probably because I applied to 20 medical schools. After realizing how inefficient my own workflow was, I started coding an excel database to help me, but I noticed it was inadequate for time-sensitive topics of items that require more than a simple description. I mean, dozens of hours I could have spent on research, or working with my own students tells me this might be a good idea... I suspect even a bare-bones solution might save us 50% time and anxiety!

If nothing else, I posted this to see if others also felt their application workflow was also inefficient. What did they do to make it more efficient, and maybe we can find a way to make all our medical school application (and all other aspects of the process) workflows more efficient? The end goal is more for future applicants, but if some of it can help current applicants now, why not?

 

[libertyyne]

Thank you for your quick response.
you pointed out an important point: is this even an issue to many? maybe it isn't precisely because most/all applicants do what is needed as soon as they get notice.
But I applied to about 20 med schools and like many of you, have a crazy schedule. The fact each school has different deadlines, processes, and things to keep in mind makes keeping track of them so inefficient. My ultimate goal would be to solve this problem by creating a database that you add all relevant info and it can do things such as:

• initial application: since I thought this might be more helpful for future applicants (since most here are done with some aspects), they might add schools they want to apply and enter the requirements.
  
• overview: where you see the most time-urgent matters and what you need for each.

I noticed that I spent much more time than I needed to, probably because I applied to 20 medical schools. After realizing how inefficient my own workflow was, I started coding an excel database to help me, but I noticed it was inadequate for time-sensitive topics of items that require more than a simple description. I mean, dozens of hours I could have spent on research, or working with my own students tells me this might be a good idea... I suspect even a bare-bones solution might save us 50% time and anxiety!

If nothing else, I posted this to see if others also felt their application workflow was also inefficient. What did they do to make it more efficient, and maybe we can find a way to make all our medical school application (and all other aspects of the process0 workflows more efficient?
(I'm not averse to helping us in the current cycle too, of course!)

I created a spreadsheet with all these variables, data entry time would not be saved in either solution. I triaged to complete secondaries to my target schools first. I then further triaged to complete secondaries that had essays I could reuse. Then I left the difficult ones for last. All this work should be completed asap. I stopped even referring to the spreadsheet because I just created inbox folders where I would dump completion emails and sort the school's by status. That ended up being a more elegant and manageable solution to me. Secondaries should be completed within a two week turn around. So this tool may be helpful, but I feel the purpose of the tool would miss the trees for the Forrest.

 

[RogueBanana]

I agree with the above posters in that it seems moot to keep track of deadline when they are pretty much irrelevant to a successful applicant, who will have their secondaries in months before then.

What would be more useful perhaps, would be a program based off of @WedgeDawg 's applicant rating matrix and the AAMC Table that lists the most important factors ADCOMS take into consideration.

Potential applicants can enter their Stats in a fashion similar to wedgedawg's survey method, and the program would analyze the weaknessess of the application not only based on total score, but also weakness in particular areas (service, clincal, underserved exposure, etc...)

This program/site could then recommend actions to be taken to improve the application.

For example,

- an applicant with good clinical, good stats and good community service(within their own community) but no experience with the underserved may be recommended to volunteer in a soup kitchen or homeless shelter to address this weakness
- an applicant with low clinical hours would be recommended to address this by shadowing or volunteering in a hospital

The site would then show the potential increase in DawgPoints (i don't care what anyone says thats what I would call them) and generate school lists for your current DawgScore and a potential school list if you carry out the recommendations.

Then, (if the user elects to enter their location by manually entering zip code) the site could potentially run some kind of search of local volunteer organizations, hospitals, SMP/Masters programs, and other programs to actually connect the user with opportunities to boost their application.


*Edit*
With regards to school listings, this program could even take into consideration the research focus of the school to recommend applicants with lots of research apply there. Same for Service based schools and religious institutions (Loma Linda, Georgetown, etc..)

 

[gizmoo]

Oh, when I said due date, I didn't mean literally the last possible date to submit the secondary, I meant that some schools specify a date when they send you the secondary that they want you to complete it by. So that field would not be necessary for every school.