Medical School Acceptance

[yoda007]

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I am going to apply this Summer and would like to understand how the acceptance works i.e different colleges have different date for sending the acceptance letters and also have different time to accept , some colleges have 2 weeks and some have 4 weeks some give you time till march/april.

If I as a applicant get a acceptance from a college and I accept it .
Q1 - Will the other colleges know and will stop me from considering for their college ?
Q2 - Can I accept from multiple colleges or should I have withdraw from one to accept the othes. What is the legal requirement..

Appreciate if somebody can explain it
Thanks

 

[Goobs]

I am going to apply this Summer and would like to understand how the acceptance works i.e different colleges have different date for sending the acceptance letters and also have different time to accept , some colleges have 2 weeks and some have 4 weeks some give you time till march/april.

If I as a applicant get a acceptance from a college and I accept it .
Q1 - Will the other colleges know and will stop me from considering for their college ?
Q2 - Can I accept from multiple colleges or should I have withdraw from one to accept the othes. What is the legal requirement..

Appreciate if somebody can explain it
Thanks

You can get accepted any time after October 15th. You can hold multiple acceptances at schools until May 15th when you can only hold one. If you get in off a waitlist past May 15th you have to make a choice (since you can only hold one acceptance). After a certain date, which I forget, schools will know where you hold acceptances, however they can and will still offer you an acceptance.

BTW it's a refundable deposit ~100 dollars to hold a place in the class. That shouldn't be a big deal. However, I've heard that some DO schools have a non-refundable one in the ~2000 range. I don't know anything about the legitimacy of that claim, but I remember seeing it posted somewhere on the forums.

 

[Konfidence]

You can accept as many seats offered to you from different medical schools as you please. This is encouraged if you haven't made a decision yet and need more time (go to second looks, get financial aid information, etc.). However, by May 15th, you must be holding only one acceptance. You can still be on any waitlist that you were placed on, but you have to withdraw from all schools you've been ACCEPTED to except from the one you're obviously going to.

Once you've been accepted to one medical school, only medical schools THAT YOU'VE ALREADY BEEN ACCEPTED TO can see where you have multiple acceptances. Waitlist schools cannot.

I'm assuming you're applying for class of 2018, so don't worry about all this until the time comes..

 

[nBeeDee]

So theres lots of traffic rules that MD schools have to follow as well as applicants...

-Schools do not get a list of all the schools you have applied to (however, they will be able to see acceptances eventually, see the points below)
-Schools can begin sending out acceptances after October 15th for normal decision. Offers to early decision applicants can be made earlier.
-Every school is different, but most will give you a certain time-frame to accept your acceptance (2 wks, 4wks, etc), and for most you will need to send in a deposit fee holding your spot ($100).
-You can hold multiple acceptances until around May 15th, where you are required to withdraw from all but one school (IMO you should withdraw earlier to open up spots for other applicants if you know you definitely wont go to a school, but take your time to make an informed decision). Lots of waitlist movement happens in May because of this as well.
-"Beginning in February of each year, a medical school that has accepted an
applicant can view the other school or schools that have accepted the applicant, if
applicable."
-"Beginning in April of each year, a medical school can view the school or schools
that have accepted an applicant, even if that applicant has not yet been accepted by
the medical school."

Those last 2 quotes are straight from the amcas manual:
https://www.aamc.org/students/download/182162/data/amcas_instruction_manual.pdf

Other traffic rules for schools can be found here:
https://www.aamc.org/students/applying/recommendations/admissionofficers/


MD/PhD programs have slightly different dates too, if you're interested in that you can look them up.

 

[nBeeDee]

BTW it's a refundable deposit ~100 dollars to hold a place in the class. That shouldn't be a big deal. However, I've heard that some DO schools have a non-refundable one in the ~2000 range. I don't know anything about the legitimacy of that claim, but I remember seeing it posted somewhere on the forums.

No that's definitely true. A couple of DO schools I applied to had non-refundable $1000 and $1250 deposits (luckily I didn't end up paying them), but they gave you until mid-December to decide. The Touro schools (TUCOM) are $2000 within 2 weeks of their acceptance offer and non-refundable, which is just ridiculous. All the deposits are listed in the DO college info book.

 

[yoda007]

Thank you very much everybody.. That was really helpful

 

[DrEnderW]

No that's definitely true. A couple of DO schools I applied to had non-refundable $1000 and $1250 deposits (luckily I didn't end up paying them), but they gave you until mid-December to decide. The Touro schools (TUCOM) are $2000 within 2 weeks of their acceptance offer and non-refundable, which is just ridiculous. All the deposits are listed in the DO college info book.

I'm on the fence whether I think this strategy is ridiculous or not.

The $2k figure is definitely accurate. However, I get what their strategy is. Schools such as Touro-NY have insane acceptance/matriculation ratio and really look for students that fit their mission. The idea is, don't apply here and waste our time unless you really would make a commitment to coming here -- they find students that are sure it's very high or number one on their list. It almost seems more honest than having 10k applicants and offering 1000 students a spot for 150 seats. It also is a deterrent for people sitting on a DO spot waiting for an MD - again they are looking for people that want the spot.

 

[nBeeDee]

I'm on the fence whether I think this strategy is ridiculous or not.

The $2k figure is definitely accurate. However, I get what their strategy is. Schools such as Touro-NY have insane acceptance/matriculation ratio and really look for students that fit their mission. The idea is, don't apply here and waste our time unless you really would make a commitment to coming here -- they find students that are sure it's very high or number one on their list. It almost seems more honest than having 10k applicants and offering 1000 students a spot for 150 seats. It also is a deterrent for people sitting on a DO spot waiting for an MD - again they are looking for people that want the spot.

That all makes sense and I hope that is their true intent, but I'm cynical about med school admissions after having gone through the process twice I think by doing so they are taking advantage of applicants given how the process is currently.

How many people are dead set on going to one particular medical school before interviewing? Unless you have personal experience with that institution, or have a very specific location in mind because of family/friends, I think its premature for an applicant to say that a school is their absolute top choice until they have gone to the interview to see firsthand what the school has to offer.

Plus admissions for either medical degree is incredibly selective and not in the least predictable for the most part. Most applicants have to apply to multiple schools to have a shot at getting in, even if they have one favorite/desired school for whatever reason (unless you apply EDP, which is no guarantee either). Then you start interviewing at places and realize which schools you prefer, and what things are most important to you in a school.

You can first submit your primary in June, have a chance at interviewing from September to April the following year at schools, and potentially be accepted anywhere from September to August of the following year. My issue is that Touro only gives you 2 weeks to decide in combination with the $2k price, knowing that the vast majority of applicants will be applying to multiple schools. It's too much money in too short of a time while you are waiting to hear back on final decisions at all the places you have applied.

I'm not trying to knock the school are anything, I'm sure its a good program and I personally know a girl who graduated from there, but their admissions strategies are questionable to me.

/end rant

 

[DrEnderW]

Not in the slightest.

If you really care about your students, as a school, then you should have no problem giving them options. Requiring a $2k deposit within 2 weeks of an acceptance, effectively takes away one's options. Why not give the student a chance to make a decision rather than force his/her hand? It's ridiculous and petty in my opinion.

I do get that. I was just trying to supply their counter argument.

Speaking for myself, I passed up an offer to a school because I didn't want to fork over a deposit when I was unsure if I wanted to move across the country (non-trad and all that crap). I definitely needed more time to decide.