No interviews yet....anyone in the same boat?

[MWB]

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No joke - he should have given it his best shot, 40 schools is about right, especially for a California resident.

Applying to med school is expensive, especially come interview time. I don't know what to tell somebody other than you have to suck it up and find the $ to go through this hell - credit cards? parents? job? A half assed app cycle is money blown, plus you have to come up with living expenses for another year+ prepping for the next cycle: what costs more? Doing the cycle right the first time, or going through a second cycle?

+1, definitely needed to cast a wider net.

 

[RedSox10]

where else should I have applied, then?

Moving forward, I'd add Penn State and UVM-- two schools which accept 50% or more OOS applicants. I don't know any other state schools that accept high proportions of out-of-staters but I know they exist, so you'll have to look at an MSAR to get that data.

And, like others have already stated, this is purely a numbers game with lots of hard work and equal amounts of LUCK. I applied to 35 schools to make up for a sub-par MCAT, but I can tell you that I would have never anticipated the schools that offered me interviews before hand. Some schools I was shocked to get rejected from while others I was shocked to get accepted to.

 

[RedSox10]

thanks man

No worries. It's an unfortunate situation to have to apply again, but at least you don't have to retake the dang MCAT like a lot of re-applicants. And your GPA isn't so low that you need to do an SMP or anything. Focus on tailoring your essays, adding more (and more appropriate) schools, and if there's time, getting to know those rec writers a little better and volunteering some more to show your app has changed from the previous year (become a big brother/sister), etc. Best of luck!

 

[SilentSoldier]

He went wrong by not applying to enough schools. I had far higher stats and another state residency in addition to CA and applied to 10 more schools. He should have applied to 40 minimum; the 7 CA schools shouldn't even be counted when they made their list.

Once again I don't know, if that was the case either. Im a CA resident with lower stats that (somehow) managed multiple interviews including a CA school. Granted, our experiences are different so the nature of our LOR, PS, and secondaries are different and could've played a part in that.

Also, it is really freaking expensive to apply to so many schools. I would've loved to apply to 20+ schools myself but I couldn't afford it. Hell, if it wasn't for FAP, I wouldn't have been able to take the MCAT. I'm sure others have fared the same.

Like I said its hard to make sense of this process. One can do everything right and still come out empty handed.

 

[robertch8]

There's nothing I can think of to beef up my EC by the time I resubmit the AMCAS in June. Also, I don't really have a compelling "story." I've just always been interested in how treatments/medical care works and how the human body works. I don't know how to spin that, nor do I really want to because the truth is simply I know I'm deeply interested in the profession despite not having an Ah-ha moment that made me realize I wanted to be a physician. It just made sense to me given my interests that I should apply to medical school. It's disappointing that what's holding my app back is that I don't have that special story.

A couple of things-- while you're not going to be able to do anything groundbreaking from now until June, you can do a shadowing opportunity that lands you a nice recommendation letter that you could submit in July since there will be lag time from when you submit the primary to when you fill out secondaries. You could do some small medically related opportunities that while might not change your list of activities dramatically but can be extra pieces/personal encounters to a personal statement that you need to write.

Just based on your viewpoints and responses, I think that you probably need to come up with a more convincing PS. Sure, your ECs might not stand out but if you can draw personal experiences from each one of those that will give you a message as to why you want to pursue a medical career, then you will still stand out a lot more to committee members. I didn't have a a-ha moment but a combination of experiences with personal encounters that tied into a message as to why I wanted to pursue medicine seemed to work.

 

[WestCoastMD16]

Well, the LORs are all from my professors. They really only know me from a sit down I had with each of them about why I'm applying to med school. So I guess, in that sense none of them were from individuals I was really close with. But isn't that the case for most applicants' LORs from professors (especially those at universities with large class sizes)?

I suppose I did kind of have canned answers that I mostly copied and pasted to different secondaries if the questions were similarly themed. But don't most people do this?

Did you get LORs from the PIs for your research projects and the volunteer coordinators from the hospitals you mentioned? You should probably have a letter of recommendation from someone for any significant activity that you mention on your app. Not having these stands out as a red flag to me.

Good luck!

 

[kautionwirez]

i hope i get an interview from either wayne state and/or aecom at the end of this cycle

 

[spike55]

how is everyone faring? I am on one waitlist and am waiting to hear from one last school (post-interview).

anyone preparing to reapply in June? I think I'm going to wait for a full year before reapplying, even though that makes it feel like I won't be starting school for... forever.

also- congrats to everyone who ended up with an interview!

 

[235788]

No worries. It's an unfortunate situation to have to apply again, but at least you don't have to retake the dang MCAT like a lot of re-applicants. And your GPA isn't so low that you need to do an SMP or anything. Focus on tailoring your essays, adding more (and more appropriate) schools, and if there's time, getting to know those rec writers a little better and volunteering some more to show your app has changed from the previous year (become a big brother/sister), etc. Best of luck!

yeah, but an SMP could prevent 2-gap years.

Don't forget, 1) there is a clear reapplicant bias, 2) SMP stats are surprisingly higher than most DO schools and generally pretty ok (thus are getting much more attention/applicants/being used for reasons other than to save a lowbie with a 3.1/many are starting to use them as an "insurance policy" etc. the list goes on)