Need Help Reducing the Number of Schools on My List

[rhlehgusl]

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[ArsèneLupin]

Unless you are willing to serve in the military , you will want to remove uniformed services

 

[rhlehgusl]

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[nwts]

Just a preliminary thought, but GW and Georgetown are both low yield, so I'd remove both of those if you're looking to cut down.

 

[WedgeDawg]

Need help convincing people to post these threads in WAMC

 

[rhlehgusl]

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[rhlehgusl]

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[Jersanta]

I would try to stay away from schools with low OOS yields. Also consider the environment of school that appeals to you (safety, close/far from home, big/small city, hot/cold areas, familiar/exotic foods, beach shores/mountainous, etc).

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using SDN mobile

 

[nwts]

Could you elaborate on what you mean by "low yield?"

They get a ton of applicants (I think Georgetown is around 13,000 and George Washington is around 11,000), so there are a whole bunch of applicants for each spot, and they have very low acceptance rates. Both of them accept applicants with a wide variety of stats, so it cannot necessarily be assumed that your high GPA and MCAT score will automatically put you high on their list. Your high stats may actually hurt you at these schools because they might figure that you'll get a better offer and turn their's down and think that it isn't worth interviewing you and offering you admission if you're just going to turn them down.

 

[rhlehgusl]

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[rhlehgusl]

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[gyngyn]

At a minimum, delete U of WA (CA is not WWAMI).
Delete Chicago Med.
Reconsider some of the OOS research powerhouses (Harvard, U of C, Wash U...)

 

[WedgeDawg]

Tufts - delete, likely to be low yield for you
Tulane - delete, likely to be low yield for you
UCR - delete if you're not from the inland empire region of CA
University of Washington - delete
Brown - delete
Rosalind Franklin - delete, likely to be low yield for you

A 126 is low, but not low enough to be super worried.

I would add more mid tiers (Rochester, Einstein, Hofstra, Miami) too.

WashU and Penn might be worth deleting (the former more so), as they are probably the two schools most likely to care about your CARS score.

Hello, I apologize. I discovered that "sub-section" (?) after I posted this and realized I couldn't move or delete this post myself.

Don't sweat it. It just happens more often than you might think and I have a tendency to sometimes make snarky comments.

 

[rhlehgusl]

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[WedgeDawg]

Thank you for your suggestions as well. I am a bit confused by this idea of "low yield" schools possibly turning me down for high stats. Honestly, I would probably pick Tulane over some of the big name schools on my list. The school has a great department for global health and tropical medicine. Georgetown and Tufts are also schools with relatively strong global health programs. Do you think that if I can show my strong interest in these possibly "low yield" schools on my secondaries, I would still have a chance?

Also, what makes "mid tiers" you have listed not "low yield" schools?

They think that you are going to choose a big name school over them; however, if you articulate that there are specific parts of your program that would cause you to choose them over Big Prestigious Name University, then they're probably more likely to interview you.

The mid-tiers take a lot of people with strong stats and are less likely to think that you're just applying to them as a backup.

 

[GrapesofRath]

I would delete the following:
GW
Georgetown
Uniformed Services (if you arent fully 100% into the commitment)
UCR(if you arent from the IE)
Brown
University of Washington
UNC
RFU
Dartmouth

I would probably keep most of these:
Boston University
University of Virginia
University of Cincinnati
University of Miami
Tufts
Tulane

Cut about half of these. Best options to scratch are probably the ones with the smallest classes(ie Vandy Stanford Pritzker etc):
Columbia
Duke
Harvard
Mount Sinai
Johns Hopkins
NYU
Northwestern
UPenn
Stanford
University of Chicago
University of Michigan
Vanderbilt
Cornell
Yale

Swap the ones you cut with about a half dozen more OOS friendly schools with an MCAT median around 34-35 that get <10k apps(ie Einstein, Ohio St etc)

 

[rhlehgusl]

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[nwts]

Thank you for your suggestions as well. I am a bit confusd by this idea of "low yield" schools possibly turning me down for high stats. Honestly, I would probably pick Tulane over some of the big name schools on my list. The school has a great department for global health and tropical medicine. Georgetown and Tufts are also schools with relatively strong global health programs. Do you think that if I can show my strong interest in these possibly "low yield" schools on my secondaries, I would still have a chance?

As far as the low-yield schools, it's not just the high stats, it's also just sheer numbers. For example, you mentioned Georgetown. They get 13,000 applications for about 200 spots. That is significantly more applicants per seat than the vast majority of schools. If you're the type of applicant whose stats make you very unlikely to get in at most other schools, maybe it's still worth it to apply. However, a person like you has a whole lot more options, so if you're looking to cut schools out, the first ones that should go are the ones that get a ton of applications for each seat and don't seem to show a strong preference toward high-stat candidates. If you really love Georgetown, by all means apply, but if you don't particularly like them over the other schools on your list, they probably aren't a good place to spend the time and money on.