Hello all, This evening i received the following email from Rutgers-RWJ director of admissions. "Thank you for your application to RWJMS. In your essay your write about your experiences in volunteering and speaking to patients/parents. Could you elaborate on those or other volunteer experiences outside of your coaching? I am particularly interested whether any of the volunteer experiences were during you undergraduate years and the opportunities you had to be outside of the campus/athlete environment." I already sent my response email - I wanted to gauge some of your opinions on if this is a good sign or a bad sign. My conviction is that if they weren't interested or didn't think that I was competitive then they simply would have rejected me outright. Does anyone have any additional input or opinions on what this email could be implying? Before someone points it out - that is the email copy and pasted. The grammar and spelling errors did strike me as odd but I am assuming that she is extremely busy and sent the email quickly. Thanks in advance for your input!
I don't think its bad, and I don't think its necessarily good. However, I think it's good they're showing an interest in you. I wonder why they wouldn't just send an interview invite if they were wondering about your application unless it was very borderline? Maybe they saw a conflict with a LOR?
I hope that they aren't suspicious of anything in particular. None of my LOR writers were involved in any of my volunteer experiences. I'm under the impression that if a medical school is suspicious then they would simply deny you rather then waste my time and theirs investigating something of the sort.
I think it is a valid question if it is not clear in your app. Were any of your experiences outside that sphere, and did you do them during your undergraduate years? If the answer is yes then I think it is helpful and cool that they are letting your clarify that.
I did have a few that I felt weren't significant enough to take up activities slots (only submitted 10-11 work/activities.) because they were a few one day trips and between 30-40 hour experiences. In retrospect I could have put them all under one slot - I'm hoping I won't have to re-do that extensive application again next year!
