Question on med school rejections

[JClass413]

I am curious if anyone here cares to share why some schools rejected them or if they were even given a reason?

Also I am wondering how many school did you apply to feel safe enough that you could get into one of your choices?

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[aspirationMD]

I am curious if anyone here cares to share why some schools rejected them or if they were even given a reason?

Also I am wondering how many school did you apply to feel safe enough that you could get into one of your choices?

I have found the best place for general info is on mdapplicants.com. You won't get specific reasons for acceptance or rejections, but you will see things that were on individual apps and which schools they applied to, got rejected from, wait listed and accepted. Also you cans search per specific med schools. I found it helpful

 

[njbmd]

Students that my schools reject are generally in two categories. The first category are those who are just not competitive enough. This means that by evidence on AMCAS, they would not be able to get through a challenging medical school curriculum. These students are usually not invited for interview. This category represents a majority of student who are rejected without interview.

The second category are students who have interviewed who just will not fit in with the class or the medical school. As accepted students indicate that they will be attending, the class starts to take shape. Some students will interview with very poor social and communication skills that they would not be able to get though four years of medical school let alone get along with other human beings. To successfully navigate through medical school, a person has to have more than just grades and MCAT scores. Every year, we receive thousands of applications for a little over 100 seats.

The last category of students are those that would be placed on a wait list. If a slot opens, they will be offered admissions. If not, then they would not get in that year. These are the folks that should definitely reapply.

MDapplicants is self-reported data. If you are interested in a particular school, you should ask the admissions office why they reject students as opposed to looking at self-reported data. While many people are honest on MDApps, many people are not.

If you are a strong applicant (well above undergraduate GPA averages and MCAT averages) then you may be able to apply to less schools but most applicants today apply to a minimum of 10 to 15 schools. Start with your state schools and go from there using the latest version of the MSAR as a guide to where you rank in terms of competitiveness for the schools that you apply to.

 

[Pemberley]

I am curious if anyone here cares to share why some schools rejected them or if they were even given a reason?

Unless we set up meetings with deans, most of us never really know why one place would take us and another wouldn't -- and as long as we got in somewhere, most of us won't go to that trouble. I really would love to have been a fly on the wall at the adcom meetings. If a pre-med gives you his own opinion on this subject, take it with a grain of salt.

Also I am wondering how many school did you apply to feel safe enough that you could get into one of your choices?

This number will be different by applicant quality and by state of residency. Look on mdapps for people with similar stats to yours and see how they did.

 

[QofQuimica]

I am curious if anyone here cares to share why some schools rejected them or if they were even given a reason?

Also I am wondering how many school did you apply to feel safe enough that you could get into one of your choices?

I applied to 22 schools and was rejected by about half a dozen. I'm not exactly sure why (the couple I asked really wouldn't tell me much). Some of the rejections were pre-interview or even pre-secondary. I assume those were because my pre-reqs were old (10+ years) and were graded P/F. I can think of three of them offhand that were post-interview, and those I assume are because of school fit. Of the three post-interview rejections, two were schools I definitely would not have chosen to attend over others that accepted me. The third school was one that I liked and would have considered attending if accepted. I felt that I was a good fit, but obviously the feeling was not mutual.