stanford secondary

[saiyaman]

okay, just wanted some advice. there is only one essay-type question that pretty much seems geared toward disadvantaged/URM applicants toward the end of the app, that reads as follows:

The Committee on Admissions regards the diversity of an entering class as an important factor in serving the educational mission of the school. The Committee on Admissions strongly encourages you to share unique, personally important, and/or challenging factors in your background, such as the quality of your early educational environment, socioeconomic status, culture, race, ethnicity, or life or work experiences. Please discuss how such factors have influenced your goals and preparation for a career in medicine.

My question is, since I am neither URM nor socioeconomically disadvantaged, should i just leave this blank or not? i could write about some stuff from my childhood, but i don't want to come off disingenuous. anyway, what do y'all thinK?

 

[Dr. Dodger Dog]

Yeah I have similar question. I do have life experiences that have led me to pursue a career in medicine, but that was the topic of my personal statement on the AMCAS.... i'm not sure if I should write something similar or what... Any suggestions?

 

[alphacentauri]

Don't leave it blank. What I did last year was discuss some clinical work that I felt had given me exposure to underserved communities and a multicultural perspective. Even if it's stuff you covered on your AMCAS, you can expand on it.

 

[saiyaman]

thanks guys. i am going to respond to it. however, especially the way the question is written, i think it is kind of a loaded question. oh well, all these secondary questions are kind of BS. just one more hoop to jump through...

 

[dr kevin40]

dodger dog, u got the secondary man? i haven't

 

[Mr. H]

Hell Yeah!!!


I'm just excited I got their secondary
boo yah!!

I think I'm going to write about my arab/muslim backround in adding diversity to their school

 

[Diogenes]

Originally posted by Mr. H

I think I'm going to right about my arab/muslim backround in adding diversity to their school

I think it would be better to write about it.

Yeah, yeah, I know, no one like a grammar maven.

 

[Mr. H]

hehe

Yeah, it sucks typing with one hand and doing it while very excited.

but I'm hyped, at least one school likes me!

 

[Diogenes]

Originally posted by Mr. H
Yeah, it sucks typing with one hand and doing it while very excited.

 

[geneman]

I'm a little confused about the "Waiver Form". It kind of looks like the forms you give to people who write you Letters of Rec's.

Do we have to fill this out? If so, all we do is check our preference and sign it?

 

[Mr. H]

Do you know if they screen much after the secondary? It doesn;t seem like there is much to it. Should we expect a interview?

 

[dr kevin40]

it says 1 in 5 ppl who get the secondary gets an interview. so i'd say that's quite a lot of screening

 

[jot]

30% of people who apply turn in secondaries 2001 (5,813 applied - 3,208 were send secondaries - 2,138 turned them in) and of the people that were reviewd - 580 were given interviews and eventually 186 people were given letters of acceptance - to a final matriculating total of 86 people. 9 people deferred from that original 186 accepted and 13 people entered who were deferred from the last years class (total 86). 44.8% who were offered acceptances matriculated as you can see.

there were only 8 people accepted off the waitlist after may.


for md/phd 233 applied - 53 interviewed - 20 accepted - 7 matriculated.

so there are ~79 seats open to regular md. damn.

 

[Dr. Dodger Dog]

79 seats? How many of those are for asian males? I bet a lot fewer than 79 ... sigh

 

[jot]

approximately 6-8. do you feel lucky?

 

[Dr. Dodger Dog]

haha... thanks for the encouraging info jot it's worth a shot i suppose

 

[dr kevin40]

trust me yall, my boy dodger dog there don't need luck. he gotz skillz. i hate him

 

[LizardKing]

you guys should look up the thread on the stanford, washu, yale, etc. consortium of schools and the data they publish together. It will answer all your questions about how many people apply, get interviewed, get accepted, etc. etc. at the top ten schools.

It should be a pdf file. It's also on the internet but hella hard to find.

 

[LizardKing]

I found the info about the consortium of schools. It's published by Stanford Med and goes into detail their criteria for picking applicants.

Go to this website: http://www.med.stanford.edu/senate/

Under the archives, look up the "Annual Review of Admissions" attachments for December 2000, 1999, and Nov. 2001 (2001's is not as descriptive though). There you will find valuable info on the number of people who applied to top schools such as stanford, washu, etc. These numbers are rock solid and don't change much year to year. The waitlist info is golden too.

There's a pdf file that someone or some website has that is almost identical to the one on stanford's website. However, it has a little bit more info and is more comprehensive. Try to find it.

 

[jot]

http://www.cormani.net/jot/misc/Stanford_med.pdf

 

[skls123]

Saiyaman,
You should definetly take the opportunity to write something which makes you unique for the secondary essay even though you are reading the question as if it is only for those considered disadvantaged. I was certainly not of that group and i wrote about experiances in heathcare delivery in a thirdworld country.
As for the stats that were put up, i cant verify them but they sound true. Asian males, dont fret, some of us do leak through the process, its far from impossible.

If you guys have anymore questions, feel free to send them by. I know what you all are going through, trust me, it was worse for the AMCAS 2002'ers.

 

[eunice]

hi all!
i was very surprised to get the secondary from stanford so soon!
it's only been a week since my file has gotten verified..
how could they have read through all the applications??
i wonder if they just use the numbers for a cutoff... in which case i should have been cut off.. haha...
puzzling..

for the essay, i am going to write about my experience at an urban underserved community where i met my role models.. an asian couple who live and serve an all African American community.. and it transitions nicely into what i see myself doing 10 years from now.
it's exactly 23 lines! whew! haha.. =)

ok.. good luck to all of you.. sorry my posts always tend to be long... like an email.. haha.. =)

eunice

 

[GoodMonkey]

ok, i called the stanford admission office re: their waiver forms. my undergrad school (umich) has a reference letter center where they collect all your LORs and send them out as a bundle for a wee bit o'cash. as part of this, for each letter i solicited, i gave them a form which had a waiver on it already (you can see the letter or you can keep confidentiality)... stanford said that when my LORs get sent from umich, they will have stated that i signed a waiver already and so there is no need for the additional forms. if you have never signed one of these confidentiality waivers, however, or if you're having each letter sent individually, then you need to fill out and send one of these waiver forms for each letter you submit to stanford. all make sense? hope this helps some. myself, i was just way geeked to get a secondary from them!

 

[geneman]

Thx monkey dude. Say hello to Dubya for me.