Need advice about staying on waitlists

[WashMe]

As for your percentage of interview invites, I think you have done pretty well for yourself(at least compared to me ). Also, there are so many variables that schools look for in applicants that they don’t necessarily disclose, such as specific types of ECs, connections/legacy, ethnic/geographical/racial diversity, and etc. So, I would not feel bad about schools that you have not received invites from.

In my opinion, the medical school application process has a large amount of subjective bias, esp once it comes to the interviews. It is lame that you have to bust your butt for >4yrs just to have the grades and ECs to get an interview, and have all that work flushed down the drain by either not being good at selling yourself in interviews or having ******* interviewers with their own agenda(I have had interviewers that have attacked my ECs as well as even make some stereotype comments about my ethnic background). Thus, there is only so much control you have over the process. So, I would recommend staying on all your waitlists to maximize your chances of an acceptance.

However, I think the best things you could do right now is to first verify that you are doing the right things in interviews (either by doing mock interviews or asking the ppl you have interviewed with). In addition, I would send letters of interest to all the schools you applied to. Finally, each school has its own mission statement, thus, if there is any school in particular that you want to go to out of the schools you have been waitlisted at, I would recommend becoming involved in ECs that reflect that school’s goals and update the school about your involvement in them.

I met someone exactly like you at a Cincinnati interview on 12/3. A guy from Berkeley with a 38 MCAT who graduated a few years ago and has been working on wall street. Slick guy, we had a brief conversation right before I left about UMich and confusion about auto-invites. I would think you were the guy, but you interviewed on 12/7...

I think you interviewed on 12/3 and your mdapps is wrong, or you have an application twin.

Thanks for the advice.

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[Retsage]

^
How do you know the MCAT of the guy you met? Are you one of those guys who asks everyone how they did on the MCAT?

 

[Handy388]

^
How do you know the MCAT of the guy you met? Are you one of those guys who asks everyone how they did on the MCAT?

I happened to have a score that's not too high to make everyone wow and not too low to make people think I am fishing for sympathy.

 

[batman1983]

I met someone exactly like you at a Cincinnati interview on 12/3. A guy from Berkeley with a 38 MCAT who graduated a few years ago and has been working on wall street. Slick guy, we had a brief conversation right before I left about UMich and confusion about auto-invites. I would think you were the guy, but you interviewed on 12/7...

I think you interviewed on 12/3 and your mdapps is wrong, or you have an application twin.

Thanks for the advice.

lol, it was probably me. If I recall, we met after the interview? You were with your fiancé? I just checked, and you are right as for the date, I interviewed on the 12/3. I just put estimations of my dates for schools on my profile(Im very lazy).

Anyways, hope all the best. Dont lose hope, you will probably get off one of those waitlists. Also, worst case, if you are dead set on getting in this year, you could still add some lower tier schools and with your stats, you will probably still get invites despite the late timing.

^
How do you know the MCAT of the guy you met? Are you one of those guys who asks everyone how they did on the MCAT?

Nah, he wasnt like that. We were talking about the auto invites at some schools(Michigan, Southwestern, etc), and the stats necessary to get them.

 

[WashMe]

^
How do you know the MCAT of the guy you met? Are you one of those guys who asks everyone how they did on the MCAT?

Haha no, I never told him and I didn't ask about his, it just came up in a UMich discussion lol.

 

[WashMe]

lol, it was probably me. If I recall, we met after the interview? You were with your fiancé? I just checked, and you are right as for the date, I interviewed on the 12/3. I just put estimations of my dates for schools on my profile(Im very lazy).

Anyways, hope all the best. Dont lose hope, you will probably get off one of those waitlists. Also, worst case, if you are dead set on getting in this year, you could still add some lower tier schools and with your stats, you will probably still get invites despite the late timing.

Nah, he wasnt like that. We were talking about the auto invites at some schools(Michigan, Southwestern, etc), and the stats necessary to get them.

Haha don't be telling everyone you're lazy! That was my wife who picked me up It was nice to meet you man. Congrats on your acceptances and good luck throughout the rest of the cycle.

 

[Retsage]

Fair enough.

I met someone like that on the trail. Very obnoxious. He was asking people how they did on the MCAT so he could then proceed to tell everyone how well he did. When he asked me, I just answered "well" and went to talk to someone else.

 

[WashMe]

Fair enough.

I met someone like that on the trail. Very obnoxious. He was asking people how they did on the MCAT so he could then proceed to tell everyone how well he did. When he asked me, I just answered "well" and went to talk to someone else.

haha that's awesome! I haven't really run into any jerks this year. Well, actually there were a couple females at WashU that were a little full of themselves, but they weren't too bad. It was early in the season and they were probably just excited/nervous. I didn't talk to them though when I heard them talking about themselves lol.

 

[flip26]

This is off topic and might sound arrogant, so I apologize ahead of time. What makes someone a "superstar"? I find it hard to believe that I would fall in the bottom half of applicants at the three schools where I was waitlisted. I have solid research and a pub, good stats, MCAT teaching, some E.D. volunteering, and some shadowing. I'm sure I don't blow away my interviews, but I would imagine I'm average. My apps were mostly complete in July, with 3 added in the last several weeks.

What were the 3 schools you only added in recent weeks? Why?

And why did you withdraw from 4 schools pre-secondary? You had not applied to an extraordinary number of schools in the first place...why did you start trimming your chances before getting any interview invites?

As an Ohio resident, if your app was complete in July, why did you not apply to every single med school in Ohio? Ohio is one of the 2 or 3 states that people list on those "best states" threads because of the number of med schools...why didn't you apply to all of them?

Your case is a real head scratcher...something is wrong here...I suggested on another thread that your PS could be the problem, and I still think that.

 

[batman1983]

Haha don't be telling everyone you're lazy! That was my wife who picked me up It was nice to meet you man. Congrats on your acceptances and good luck throughout the rest of the cycle.

Thx and keep me inform about your progress. Hope everything works out in the end.

haha that's awesome! I haven't really run into any jerks this year. Well, actually there were a couple females at WashU that were a little full of themselves, but they weren't too bad. It was early in the season and they were probably just excited/nervous. I didn't talk to them though when I heard them talking about themselves lol.

While interviewing at UCLA, I met a couple applicants from Harvard that were like that. They were uber arrogant and cocky towards me, esp after I told them I was a reapplicant(they were asking me about my stats, background, and etc). The whole time, they were acting like UCLA was their backup choice. I dont know if they were like that because they felt they were very strong applicants or because Harvard creates that type of person(based on my experience w/ppl from Harvard).

 

[Retsage]

I've met a bunch of people from Hahvahd (sorry, from "I did my undergrad in Boston") and they were all rather humble about it.

 

[WashMe]

What were the 3 schools you only added in recent weeks? Why?

And why did you withdraw from 4 schools pre-secondary? You had not applied to an extraordinary number of schools in the first place...why did you start trimming your chances before getting any interview invites?

As an Ohio resident, if your app was complete in July, why did you not apply to every single med school in Ohio? Ohio is one of the 2 or 3 states that people list on those "best states" threads because of the number of med schools...why didn't you apply to all of them?

Your case is a real head scratcher...something is wrong here...I suggested on another thread that your PS could be the problem, and I still think that.

The schools that were added were Case Western, Cleveland Clinic, and UMich. They were added because they are great schools and I was WL'd at the 2 OH state schools... I withdrew from the 4 other schools based on location or the secondary essay prompts (I could tell I wasn't who they were looking for because I couldn't answer the questions). I chose 3 of the 6 Ohio schools and I thought that was plenty, but perhaps I was wrong... My pre-med advisor really liked my PS for what it's worth, which may not be much. She also told me that the other 3 Ohio schools would likely have passed on me anyway because they wouldn't have thought that I would actually matriculate there. That sounded egotistical to me, but that's what she said and I ended up never applying.