MSAR Use

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Sampats

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Which MSAR Percentiles do I use for picking schools to apply to? The advice I was given was to apply to schools where I'm >25%. Is that true? I'm ORM btw. Also, how do you use MSAR for upward trends? For example, mine was 3.57 - 3.93 - 3.92
 
Which MSAR Percentiles do I use for picking schools to apply to? The advice I was given was to apply to schools where I'm >25%. Is that true? I'm ORM btw. Also, how do you use MSAR for upward trends? For example, mine was 3.57 - 3.93 - 3.92
For Harvard/Stanford class school, use 25-100th %iles.

For all others, use 10-90th.

Pay very careful attention to the IS/OOS ratios of state schools. They typically favor the home team.
 
@Goro so you think as long as I'm at the 25% for both GPA and MCAT, I am academically/statistically competitive for that school as an ORM?
 
Not an AdCom but here is some experience, mine and others. As not URM, I'd recommend not applying anywhere that your MCAT is below that 25%-tile number. And this assumes your GPA is above the median for that school. If GPA is low or mid-range, you might set a cutoff applying at 1-2 points above that 25%-tile MCAT number. Of course, select "Accepted Applicants IS or OOS" as applicable to your situation when looking at median MCAT in MSAR.

For IS / OSS, I used two factors. The % of seats that go to OOS and the % of OOS applicants the school interviews. The latter turned out to be a more relevant factor as Wake Forest, for example, is OOS friendly in terms of seats but interviews a very small number of a large volume of OOS applicants. Some of the SUNY's on the other hand, don't admit many OOS applicants but because of that they don't get many OOS applicants --- yet they interview a fairly high percentage of those that apply.

One other factor I found relevant was to look at the class make up in terms of age and % graduate degrees. This can tell you whether they lean toward older non-traditional students or ones recently out of school with no graduate work. Good luck!
 
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