Number of acceptances over the course of the application cycle?

[Curioso06]

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From what I understand, there's about 20,000 med school seats that are filled each year throughout the nation. I was wondering how many of these are essentially "filled" over the course of the application cycle. In other words, there will be approximately 20,000 candidates with at least one med school acceptance. How many or what fraction are accounted for throughout the app cycle?

I'm particularly interested in how many are accounted for by the following dates: 1) earliest allowable acceptances given (October 15th), 2) multiple acceptances report release, 3) national acceptance list release, and 4) the date at which applicants are allowed to hold only one acceptance. I figure these dates are probably the most significant. Of course, I'm sure there's a lot of acceptances being handed out a few days following these dates as well.

Do any adcoms have insight on what proportion of total med school seats are filled by these approximate time points?

 

[piii]

You won't find this information because it doesn't exist. Stop worrying about, because it doesn't actually matter.

 

[cardzkp]

You won't find this information because it doesn't exist. Stop worrying about, because it doesn't actually matter.

The former half of your response was sufficient.. and even if you're correct, he directed his post at adcoms

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

Id imagine only a tiny fraction are filled on the 15th. Maybe 30 seats given away at each school, many to overlapping students. Some schools don't accept anyone on those dates.

If I had to pull a number out of my @$$, I'd bet most schools fill their class 50% after April 30th, via the waitlist.

But honestly I don't think anyone (even adcoms or faculty) would have this information. Maybe an admissions Dean would, but I doubt anyone pays much attention because it wouldn't be very useful

 

[Curioso06]

I appreciate the responses.

I agree that for any individual school and any individual applicant, this information may not be useful. Although, as already pointed out, aggregate trends can still be interesting and potentially useful. Consider the applicant who's on multiple waitlists but holds no acceptances and is trying to calculate the odds of being admitted from the waitlist at a certain time in the cycle. It's advised that the applicant continue improving his/her application in case s/he needs to re-apply the following cycle. If s/he knew that randomly, the chances of being one of the ~20,000 acceptees that cycle is a very low number (say, ~10%), by around January, then that would give a few more months of time to seriously plan and prepare for a re-app. On the other hand, if the applicant knew that his/her chances were very low at some later time, like May, then it would just result in less time to prepare. I'm just using the months January and May as examples here, and I realize that applicants should just assume that s/he will be reapplying regardless. However, for many candidates, preparing for an app cycle costs time/money that could be used for more immediate needs (food, rent, etc.) (There's a trade-off between how much one can realistically invest in med school apps vs what they need to do to pay the bills, etc.)

Anyway, the reason why I brought this up is because I thought it'd be useful for applicants to know the odds of being in med school somewhere at some time during the app cycle. If ~90% of the med school seats are accounted for by January, then by January, the applicant should seriously reconsider his/her re-app. If it's not until May that ~90% of total med school seats are accounted for, then there's probably a lot of undue anxiety. Just my 2 cents on the matter.

 

[Dr.NickRiviera]

Even if we did make a broad overarching statement about filled seats, it would have to include all the med schools and that would make it very inaccurate. Iowa had their last interview at the end of January. NYMC will be interviewing until the end of April. The very large gap between schools will certainly reduce the accuracy and therefore, usefulness of the trend.

Plus, if people apply only to schools that end early in the season or end late in the season, that aggregate trend could be very misleading for them.

 

[piii]

I appreciate the responses.

I agree that for any individual school and any individual applicant, this information may not be useful. Although, as already pointed out, aggregate trends can still be interesting and potentially useful. Consider the applicant who's on multiple waitlists but holds no acceptances and is trying to calculate the odds of being admitted from the waitlist at a certain time in the cycle. It's advised that the applicant continue improving his/her application in case s/he needs to re-apply the following cycle. If s/he knew that randomly, the chances of being one of the ~20,000 acceptees that cycle is a very low number (say, ~10%), by around January, then that would give a few more months of time to seriously plan and prepare for a re-app. On the other hand, if the applicant knew that his/her chances were very low at some later time, like May, then it would just result in less time to prepare. I'm just using the months January and May as examples here, and I realize that applicants should just assume that s/he will be reapplying regardless. However, for many candidates, preparing for an app cycle costs time/money that could be used for more immediate needs (food, rent, etc.) (There's a trade-off between how much one can realistically invest in med school apps vs what they need to do to pay the bills, etc.)

Anyway, the reason why I brought this up is because I thought it'd be useful for applicants to know the odds of being in med school somewhere at some time during the app cycle. If ~90% of the med school seats are accounted for by January, then by January, the applicant should seriously reconsider his/her re-app. If it's not until May that ~90% of total med school seats are accounted for, then there's probably a lot of undue anxiety. Just my 2 cents on the matter.

That's the thing, applicants already know their rough chances. Knowing these numbers isn't actually practically useful at all. It doesn't give you any different power to influence your chances. If you been waitlisted at all your schools in January, you don't need some number to tell you that you have low chances. I get what you're saying but there is zero value other than maybe peace of mind for these calculations. Aggregate trends dont apply when individual chances are dependent on so many variables.