If schools pre-screen for secondaries and they decide not to send you a secondary, will they send you an official rejection email? Same goes for after submitting secondaries: will they officially email you telling you that they decided not to give you an interview?
Secondary Rejection?
- Thread starter eartharte
- Start date
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2019
- Messages
- 1,537
- Reaction score
- 1,514
All over the place. There weren't a lot of places that told me to kick rocks between the primary and secondary (holistic review, aka they wanted the $) but most did tell me why and it was usually that I had no connections to the geographic area. Only a few in my experience did silent rejections, NJMS comes to mind, but they certainly do exist.
David D MD - USMLE and MCAT Tutor
Med School Tutors
David D MD - USMLE and MCAT Tutor
Med School Tutors
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2019
- Messages
- 8,428
- Reaction score
- 9,792
After the secondary, yeah, schools are all over the place. Some even ghost candidates after an interview! Just stay tuned to the school specific forums. That will give you a good feel for how you are doing as compared to others -- i.e., if a ton of people are reporting IIs and you haven't received one, that's not good.
It isn't over until it's over, and who knows what timing is going to look like this year, but IIs can go out anytime between when secondaries are received and next spring. It is, however, true that some schools will not reject you until the cycle is over, and some not even then!
Before the secondary, not so much. As posted multiple times in multiple places, although people seem to get pretty excited when they receive secondaries, schools love the revenue they generate, so they are pretty liberal in sending them out. If you don't receive one for some reason, you can always try to call the school and find out why, but that's your answer and you might or might not receive formal rejection beyond that.
Most schools that screen for secondaries do it just by using a fairly low bar for GPA and MCAT, although at least one school also seemed to use reported IAs. Of course, there is nothing to stop them from having someone read your primary first, but most don't do that before cashing your check and receiving your secondary.
- Joined
- Jan 21, 2016
- Messages
- 15,422
- Reaction score
- 25,282
Also remember that not all secondaries get decided on or sent out as soon as they read your primary app.
Sometimes they want to get an idea of this year's crop of applicants before they decide on who to send the secondaries to, and even though yours was submitted early you might not hear back for a couple of months. Don't let self-doubt take you over, but keep busy with the ones you do receive and the things you do have control over.
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2011
- Messages
- 28,816
- Reaction score
- 55,088
Secondary fees are the only thing that keeps applicants from applying to every school in the US!
I don't like them anymore than anyone else but until there is a cap on applications, it's all we have to keep this mess from getting even worse.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2019
- Messages
- 8,428
- Reaction score
- 9,792
I totally get it. Plus, that revenue is used to fund the office. My point was only that schools like the fees, so they will generally not reject someone before they submit the secondary, unless their stats are clearly below a modest bar, and, if that happens, the lack of a secondary might be all the rejection an applicant might receive.
After all, if what I said wasn't true, schools could save themselves some work by rejecting more applicants pre-secondary if the primary objective of secondary fees was to manage work flow rather than raise revenue to fund the function. Aren't some schools notorious for rejecting candidates pretty quickly once a secondary is submitted? Surely those schools aren't using fees to discourage applications!
Do you know if schools generally send out a notification if an applicant is being rejected pre-secondary?
Last edited:
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2011
- Messages
- 28,816
- Reaction score
- 55,088
I wish! It goes to support whichever component of the enterprise that needs it.
We still have to have someone read it to pre-reject the application. It is not worth it.
I'd much rather have half the number (or a third) of applications if they were from people who actually wanted to attend and have done the research to confirm that they are a good fit.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2020
- Messages
- 3,581
- Reaction score
- 2,635
Short answer: not nec. Schools get a lot of apps and if they haven't sent you a secondary by say, August 1st or so, then you should assume that you're not going to be selected for an interview. Sucks but it's the truth.eartharte said:
- Joined
- Jan 15, 2019
- Messages
- 641
- Reaction score
- 565
August 1st seems kind of early to jump to that conclusion. Some people this cycle are even going to be verified by August 1st.
- Joined
- Jun 11, 2010
- Messages
- 74,571
- Reaction score
- 119,604
PLEASE restrain your ignorance.
Our wily old Admissions Dean sure wishes he could keep all those secondary fees! Please do not speak about things that you lack direct knowledge of.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2019
- Messages
- 8,428
- Reaction score
- 9,792
Okay, fine. Admissions office funding or general school funding, at the end of the day it really doesn't matter. From my economics class, I learned that money is fungible, and money raised from secondary fees that goes anywhere in the school still frees up money for the admissions office (i,e,, would the admissions budget really be exactly the same even if the school lost all secondary fees? Is your budget never touched, even when revenues from sources beyond your control, like the endowment, are impacted by external events?).
Plus, I specifically said schools love the fees; I never specifically referenced admissions offices. I fully understand that politics and the budget process ultimately determines how revenues are allocated at any institution. The fact that your Dean doesn't get to use the money however he sees fit doesn't mean that he has the freedom to stop collecting it.
If your school took all the secondary fees and donated them to a worthy outside cause each year, then I might believe that schools have no incentive to receive them. Whether your Dean directly gets to keep all, some or none of these fees is irrelevant -- he benefits from generating them for the school. If not, why not do more screening on the front end and cut down on the fees that are of absolutely no benefit, as well as the work your admissions team has to do each year???? Wouldn't THAT directly benefit the entire admissions office, as well as reducing taxes for the hopelessly optimistic and pathologically clueless?? I might not know exactly how money gets divvied up at any particular school, but I do have a rudimentary understanding of Budgeting 101! 🙂
Last edited:
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2020
- Messages
- 3,581
- Reaction score
- 2,635
Private medical schools are free to collect secondary fees as they wish; they're not a public institution. Public medical schools are technically part of the govt., but there is a fine line between staying afloat and collecting profit. Secondary fees (if you do the math): ~$60 per secondary x 5000 applicants = $30,000 per year. This is NOWHERE near enough to keep a med school running (only considering overhead)...so if you think about it, you're arguing over a pittance. Just let it go.
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2019
- Messages
- 8,428
- Reaction score
- 9,792
Not really arguing about anything at all. The question was whether schools sent rejections pre-secondary, and my response was simply that schools like the money, and generally don't reject people pre-secondary. What you say about pittances is very true, but whether it's $300,000 (NOT $30,000!!!!! -- check your math) at a public school or $1,000,000 at a private school, it's not nothing, and schools clearly are not giving it up, since they can, but choose not to, screen out more people that they are never going to invite in for an interview pre-secondary.
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2019
- Messages
- 8,428
- Reaction score
- 9,792
Sure, yeah, fine! It is what it is!! No argument from me regarding whether it is justified, or how it is used. My ONLY point is that schools like the money, and therefore don't reject a lot of people pre-secondary, which is in direct response to OP's question regarding whether schools will send rejection notices if they aren't going to send a secondary.
Saying no, they don't care about the money, because it does not go directly into the coffers of the admissions office, is simply not true. If any adcom could say they don't care about the money because the school doesn't keep it, and only charges it to limit the number of secondaries they receive, would make the point if it were only true. The simple fact is, if all of the fees were charged with the primary, and secondaries were able to be submitted with no extra charge, I'm sure we'd all suddenly find the schools to be much more selective in who receives them, because it would greatly cut down on their work while they would have zero financial incentive to solicit secondary submissions.
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2014
- Messages
- 2,140
- Reaction score
- 2,322
OP, you may receive or not receive a secondary application up until the deadline for all applications to be complete at each medical school. As gonnif said, it is helpful to think of one's self as being rejected until you hear otherwise (invitation to complete a secondary application, invitation to an interview, etc). It reminds us to keep working on our applications in anticipation of needing to apply again in the future. 60%+ of applicants this year will not be accepted this year. Best of luck to you.
