Texas Interviews 2007 - Part 2

Discover Your Odds of Getting into Medical School
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I'm copying Jota's formating 😉

Best Food: I thought UT-Houston did a good job on food.
Worst Food: & Tackiest Food: UTSW - I'm going to have to go with Jota on this... that BBQ was rank. (I know we're not including OOS but Vandy had to have the nastiest food I'd ever eaten. 😱 )

Best Tour Guide(s): UT- Houston, observing a real surgery? hellz yeah & UTSW, she was great at answering questions
Worst Tour Guide: I don't remember any tour guide being really bad...
Worst TOUR: UTMB - I'm pretty sure Galveston in August bears a striking resemblance to hell.

Best convo with Students: UTSW believe it or not... I think I found the only cool students (j/k, potato51)
Worst convo with Students: UTSW as well... could have done without this one guy bashing UTSA for awhile 🙄

Best interview day overall: Houston... yes I know I'm biased. I just had a blast that day and ended up really enjoying the school.
 
Best Food: I'm gonna give it to TCOM for taking us out to a restaurant and letting us order off a menu. Also, at UTSW, but only at the dinner w/students the day prior to the interview, for those who chose to attend.
Worst Food: & Tackiest Food: UTSW...bbq sandwhiches? I think they could have done better than that. Not even a salad or anything to accompany it...just a sandwhich with bbq meat and a can of soda. 😕

Best Tour Guide(s): UTSW, she was very good at showing us different areas and answering all our questions. She also seemed very concerned with respecting patients' privacy, kudos for that.
Worst Tour Guide: If I had to choose, I'd say Texas Tech. It was so uneventful that I don't even remember what I saw.
Worst TOUR: See above...although nothing was really too bad, it just wasn't memorable.

Best convo with Students: TCOM, everyone seemed very nice.
Worst convo with Students: Texas Tech, believe it or not. All the students there basically told us they were there because no other school accepted them, so they didn't seem like a happy group overall.

Best interview day overall: TCOM. The admissions staff was EXTREMELY friendly, and so were the students.
 
somemaybedoc said:
It's freaking snowing! The news makes it feel like the Texas equivalent of the blizzard of '96 in the northeast.

Does Austin ever salt its roads or do I have to wait for the ice to melt on its own?
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WTF im iN BALTIMORE WHRE TEH FK IS MY SNOW
 
This morning we woke up to icy sidewalks and more dangerously, icy stairwells in our apartment complex. The funny thing is that they salted our practically dry porch (which is roofed and has wood floor), yet they forgot to salt our stairs. 😕
 
Best Food: UTH. Tex Mex Buffet.
Worst Food: UTSW ties with UTSA. Sandwiches djksa;fjdsa;fjdsa

Best Tour Guide(s): UTSW
Worst Tour Guide: UTSA.
Worst TOUR: UTH, only because it was a bajillion degrees outside.

Best convo with Students: UTH, UTSA, UTSW all tied
Worst convo with Students: UTMB

Best interview day overall: UTH, UTSW, UTMB because I got morning interviews. I hate eating and feeling nervous my stomach doesn't settle too well.
 
Urinate on the ice. It has sodium, and it's warm, and it marks with color where it is safe to step. Plus all the other people will know that you were there and it's your piece of sidewalk or stair or driveway...
 
eternalrage said:
Urinate on the ice. It has sodium, and it's warm, and it marks with color where it is safe to step. Plus all the other people will know that you were there and it's your piece of sidewalk or stair or driveway...
Click to expand...

:laugh: :laugh: Doesn't sound very hygienic....and let's not forget that it's freeeeeeeezing outside.
 
think about how hard it is for us guys... our manhood is on the line, we gotta like huddle so people don't see the massive shrinkage to 20 degree weather.

it's TWICE as bad for us aZnS...
 
somemaybedoc said:
It's freaking snowing! The news makes it feel like the Texas equivalent of the blizzard of '96 in the northeast.

Does Austin ever salt its roads or do I have to wait for the ice to melt on its own?
Click to expand...
You pretty much have to wait for everything to melt on its own (which looks like it might not be until Tomorrow AFTERNOON?!?!?!)

About the salt trucks: I can almost guarantee you that on tonight's news, they will show an overturned salt truck or one that skidded off the road. They don't have enough salt to salt in advance, and they don't have enough trucks to really do much of anything, so they start salting AFTER the roads have all frozen, and that's when the trucks start flipping over or skidding off of the roads. Happens every time.

You pretty much just have to stay put and wait these out (when I first moved here from the Northeast, I thought I knew how to drive on snow/ice and went out to pick up some food/videos. To make a long story short, I did $700+ damage to my car, realized that TXDOT does pretty much NOTHING to the ice on the roads, and now just stay put) even though I am getting major cabin fever.
 
"Member of Video Arcade Preservation Society" and you are getting cabin fever?

Silk Road Online! Free MMORPG where you get to be AzN!
 
jota_jota said:
You pretty much have to wait for everything to melt on its own (which looks like it might not be until Tomorrow AFTERNOON?!?!?!)

About the salt trucks: I can almost guarantee you that on tonight's news, they will show an overturned salt truck or one that skidded off the road. They don't have enough salt to salt in advance, and they don't have enough trucks to really do much of anything, so they start salting AFTER the roads have all frozen, and that's when the trucks start flipping over or skidding off of the roads. Happens every time.

You pretty much just have to stay put and wait these out (when I first moved here from the Northeast, I thought I knew how to drive on snow/ice and went out to pick up some food/videos. To make a long story short, I did $700+ damage to my car, realized that TXDOT does pretty much NOTHING to the ice on the roads, and now just stay put) even though I am getting major cabin fever.
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It never freezes here. Ever. If there is ice on the roads, I'm staying the hell inside because there is going to be mayhem on the road. :scared:
 
Best Food: UTH.
Worst Food: & Tackiest Food: Texas Tech... brown chicken and yellow chicken were the main dishes, no labels, had no idea what I was being fed.

Best Tour Guide(s): UTSW, thorough.
Worst Tour Guide: N/A
Worst TOUR: TCOM, didn't see any clinical stuff.

Best convo with Students: UTSW. Amusing.
Worst convo with Students: Everyone was normal enough.

Overall probably UTSW, it was well run and I saw everything I needed to, I'm not going to knock the BBQ because that is their longstanding way of doing lunch and I guess I'm a bit of a traditionalist. [/QUOTE]
 
eternalrage said:
"Member of Video Arcade Preservation Society" and you are getting cabin fever?

Silk Road Online! Free MMORPG where you get to be AzN!
Click to expand...
Haha, good catch. Unfortunately most of my games aren't at my house (and of the ones that are, a lot are in my garage which is FREEZING right now,) but I do have a few.

But, that's actually a good idea -- I'll see if my wife wants to go and play some Tempest.....
 
Best Food: UT Houston--maybe it was the ambiance... gorgeous. Plus I was sitting to a friend I had made from a UTMB interview and one of the facutly at my table knew my dad. Lots to talk about.
Worst Food: I can't complain, I liked it all. They all had vegetarian options, so I was very impressed.
Tackiest Food: UTSW, because I don't like to wait in line.

Best Tour Guide(s): UTH. They let us watch that surgery as long as we wanted! The tour guide at UTSW was really hot, so he gets bonus points too. (Sorry, but he was smokin)
Worst Tour Guide: Wash U. I know this is supposed to be about Texas, but it was just that bad. He left half of us in the lobby in front of the elevator without telling us which floor he was going to.
Worst TOUR: A&M... we went to three floors of the VA... which all looked the SAME... a bunch of hallways. Longest tour ever.

Best convo with Students: The girls I stayed with at Houston and Southwestern. Awesome.
Worst convo with Students: Hmm... it could be UTMB with the girl who thought that the fact her school boasted about it's diversity was pointless. Or it could be a girl from A&M who threw interview questions at me for fun and then critiqued me on an answer she thought would doom me. It happened to be an answer I had used on every interview previously (and did not doom me). It was also hard being around the UTSA kids, who I knew were judging me (on the adcom).

Best interview day overall: Tie between UTH and UTSW
Worst interview day overall: UTSA
 
The Texas National Guard just called me saying that I went on their site, filled out the contact information. I didn't. Does anyone know if the medical schools are giving out info to parties like this?

Kinda freaking out...
 
eternalrage said:
The Texas National Guard just called me saying that I went on their site, filled out the contact information. I didn't. Does anyone know if the medical schools are giving out info to parties like this?

Kinda freaking out...
Click to expand...

I'm betting you just got pranked by somebody you know.
 
eternalrage said:
The Texas National Guard just called me saying that I went on their site, filled out the contact information. I didn't. Does anyone know if the medical schools are giving out info to parties like this?

Kinda freaking out...
Click to expand...

yea... i recently got a letter from the navy congratulating me on getting accepted to utmb and asking me if i would take money of them and serve for 4 years after residency... wtf!
 
djfir0 said:
yea... i recently got a letter from the navy congratulating me on getting accepted to utmb and asking me if i would take money of them and serve for 4 years after residency... wtf!
Click to expand...

This is a little different though, the TX national guard rep said that someone logged into their website and filled out my contact info and submitted it. At least your situation, they at least told you it was UTMB.

It cannot be anyone from Baltimore, because most don't know my Texas address. And I doubt it is available through any JHU networks. It can't be people from TX because I am a horrible person and never kept in touch with my high school buddies.

=/
 
eternalrage said:
The Texas National Guard just called me saying that I went on their site, filled out the contact information. I didn't. Does anyone know if the medical schools are giving out info to parties like this?

Kinda freaking out...
Click to expand...

Maybe the high school jock is messing with you for dissing his hot cheerleader girlfriend and - ahh hell, I suck at analogies...
 
djfir0 said:
yea... i recently got a letter from the navy congratulating me on getting accepted to utmb and asking me if i would take money of them and serve for 4 years after residency... wtf!
Click to expand...

just got the same thing
 
Apparently Tech had different food for each interview session.

For my session, they had chicken fried steak, and I loved it.

UTSW is getting a lot of bashing for their bbq sandwiches. I can't say I disagree, but apparently they've done it for years, and I doubt it will change :laugh:
 
AggieJohn said:
Apparently Tech had different food for each interview session.

For my session, they had chicken fried steak, and I loved it.

UTSW is getting a lot of bashing for their bbq sandwiches. I can't say I disagree, but apparently they've done it for years, and I doubt it will change :laugh:
Click to expand...

Ooo I had cheese enchiladas at Tech. Yes! I don't get the good kind where I am now.
 
For my interview day, Tech had sort of a buffet with chicken, scalloped potatoes, beans, and something else I can't remember, plus dessert.

It actually was not a bad lunch.
 
thank mike anderson's bbq across the street from UTSW. i've been doing research here for a year and a half and that place caters EVERYTHING! they should pass out the "buy 7 meals and get 1 free" punch card in your orientation packet!
 
so who knows how many spots left at a&m??
 
bump...good question, A&M anyone? What have people been saying about accepting/withdrawing
 
AggieJohn said:
Apparently Tech had different food for each interview session.

For my session, they had chicken fried steak, and I loved it.

UTSW is getting a lot of bashing for their bbq sandwiches. I can't say I disagree, but apparently they've done it for years, and I doubt it will change :laugh:
Click to expand...
Yeah, Tech's food was fine, but IMHO not as good as A&M's food. So, I'd probably put Tech 2nd (I also agree with everybody that said that the Jason's Deli at UTSA was lame, especially because they had ONLY sweet tea. Baylor was also somewhat lame for similar reasons, though they at least had a full-spectrum of drinks) So I would probably rank them A&M > Tech > Baylor > UTSW > UTSA > UTMB

....and I didn't think the BBQ itself was that bad at UTSW (I had the turkey -- it's pretty hard to mess up turkey) I just thought that it was tacky that they put a "Please take only 1 BBQ Sandwich" sign out, and also that it was kind of a free-for-all with tons of Medical Students swarming for their very own BBQ sandwich.
 
So, although I find the discussion on interview foods very interesting, I am actually WORRIED to hell about the match on feb. 15. I have interviewed at 5 schools, but didn't get pre-match offers to any. 🙁

So technically, if I rank, less popular schools such as A&M higher on my list rather than let's say UTSW, wouldn't I have more changes of getting in to med school (well, dismissing the fact that UTSW might not do the match)? Suppose I rank A&M first and UTSW last. Since, most people are ranking UTSW at their top, the spots would be filled faster. While A&M would have more spots open (because of all the people who ranked it last) and if I rank them first, wouldn't I get a better chance for acceptance??? Should I take this into consideration? Does it even make that big of a difference??
 
nvm, I just found out that it really doesn't really matter...
 
trevagandalf said:
So, although I find the discussion on interview foods very interesting, I am actually WORRIED to hell about the match on feb. 15. I have interviewed at 5 schools, but didn't get pre-match offers to any. 🙁

So technically, if I rank, less popular schools such as A&M higher on my list rather than let's say UTSW, wouldn't I have more changes of getting in to med school (well, dismissing the fact that UTSW might not do the match)? Suppose I rank A&M first and UTSW last. Since, most people are ranking UTSW at their top, the spots would be filled faster. While A&M would have more spots open (because of all the people who ranked it last) and if I rank them first, wouldn't I get a better chance for acceptance??? Should I take this into consideration? Does it even make that big of a difference??
Click to expand...
I think your logic is sound so long as you really don't mind if you go to the, on average, lower ranked schools.
 
trevagandalf said:
So, although I find the discussion on interview foods very interesting, I am actually WORRIED to hell about the match on feb. 15. I have interviewed at 5 schools, but didn't get pre-match offers to any. 🙁

So technically, if I rank, less popular schools such as A&M higher on my list rather than let's say UTSW, wouldn't I have more changes of getting in to med school (well, dismissing the fact that UTSW might not do the match)? Suppose I rank A&M first and UTSW last. Since, most people are ranking UTSW at their top, the spots would be filled faster. While A&M would have more spots open (because of all the people who ranked it last) and if I rank them first, wouldn't I get a better chance for acceptance??? Should I take this into consideration? Does it even make that big of a difference??
Click to expand...

This is not how I understand it. The order with which you rank the schools should in NO way affect your chances of being accepted to the schools. For example, let's deal with a simple model. You interviewed at UTSW and A&M. UTSW needs to fill 30 spots, and so they give TMDSAS a list of 90 ranked applicants. For simplicity's sake A&M needs to fill the exact number of spots and submitted the exact number of ranked applicants. We will consider the different scenarios that may occur. 1st GENERAL scenario: you are high enough on UTSW ranked list to obtain one of the 30 UTSW spots. This can occur in two primary ways. The first way is TMDSAS will go through the 2 ranked lists of the 2 schools. You managed to be high ranked enough on UTSW's list and you ranked UTSW first, so then you will be removed from the match and a spot for UTSW will disappear. But let's say you ranked UTSW as 2nd, and A&M first, but you were not in A&M's top 30 ranked applicants. What will happen is that you are given an abstract "temporary acceptance" to UTSW. TMDSAS will then proceed through A&M's ranked 31st to 90th applicant, till A&M has filled all 30 of the spots they need to. Let's say you are not in the top 90 ranked applicant for A&M, or you were ranked a number like 76, but they filled their 30th spot with number 75. Then you will still be ACCEPTED to UTSW, even though they were your number 2 choice. This is messy, but the end idea is that the way you ranked the schools will not affect your chance of being accepted to the schools, but it will affect what schools you choose to go to. So you ranking the schools is just that, you ranking the schools. It doesn't affect your chance of acceptance. But there is a caveat. Let's say there are 5 people named A, B, C, D, and E. A, B, C, D, and E interviewed at UTSW, A&M. All five A-E wanted UTSW, but A-D believed that if they ranked a school like A&M highest, they will have a higher a chance of being accepted to med school than if they ranked UTSW first. So against their personal preference A-D ranked A&M over UTSW. Let's say UTSW needs to fill 4 spots, and its rank list is A, B, C, D, and E as last. A, B, C, and D are also high enough on A&M ranked list to be accepted. Even though A-D's first choice is actually UTSW, and if they chose UTSW they would have gotten UTSW, yet since they chose A&M, they instead are accepted to A&M. While D just ranked the schools UTSW and A&M in order of his personal preference. So he ranked UTSW 1st and A&M 2nd. For UTSW he is accepted, because A-D didn't rank the schools according to their true preference.

Very convoluted, but the moral of the story is: Just rank the schools according to preference. It does not affect your chance of getting in.
 
At first I was skeptical about what Metatemujin wrote. So I searched and found the NRMP match algorithm. Which basically confirmed that the order we rank a program won't hurt us. In short, we are all numbered individuals on a list and if we rank a program lower on that list but they've ranked us high, then even though other students tentatively match to a school, if the top choices don't work out then you're still ranked higher up in those lower schools.

Sorry if this is confusing, read the website. I hope TMDSAS uses the same algorithm. That will be another thing to try and answer before the 1st.

:luck:
 
bump. i'm still wondering if tmdsas uses the same matching algorithm that nrmp uses. any thoughts?
 
I am willing to bet that TMDSAS uses a similar algorithm to the residency match to solve this variant of the stable marriage problem (google it, I'm lazy); the matching methodology is pretty well established at this point and I doubt TMDSAS would change it.

The result being that your rank order should not effect your chances of getting into some medical school.

I think this was the article that started the madness:

Gale, D. and Shapley, L. S. "College Admissions and the Stability of Marriage." Amer. Math. Monthly 69, 9-14, 1962.
 
Ummm... Bump

Seriously, this thread seems to be losing its fire.

Nonetheless I can't think of anything productive to say. 🙄
 
somemaybedoc said:
Ummm... Bump

Seriously, this thread seems to be losing its fire.

Nonetheless I can't think of anything productive to say. 🙄
Click to expand...

Think of something productive....mmm....yeah, I have nothing.

But what about the everpresent freakout message? You can never have too many.

😱 OMG!!!! IT'S ONLY 26 DAYS UNTIL THE MATCH!!!!!!! 😱
 
what metatemujin said makes sense. And I also found this nice TMDSAS website confirming that the match system doesn't really depend on the candidate's ranking :
http://www.utsystem.edu/tmdsas/TMDSAS Conduct of the Match-EY07.pdf

By the way, I just got an interview to baylor.. UHUULLL.. 🙂 And I've thought that it was a rejection letter for sure this late in the cycle...
 
trevagandalf said:
what metatemujin said makes sense. And I also found this nice TMDSAS website confirming that the match system doesn't really depend on the candidate's ranking :
http://www.utsystem.edu/tmdsas/TMDSAS Conduct of the Match-EY07.pdf

By the way, I just got an interview to baylor.. UHUULLL.. 🙂 And I've thought that it was a rejection letter for sure this late in the cycle...
Click to expand...

What time did you get it...and did you get it by e-mail?

I know I have (1) in my inbox but my e-mail isn't loading...the server must be down. 🙁
 
trevagandalf said:
what metatemujin said makes sense. And I also found this nice TMDSAS website confirming that the match system doesn't really depend on the candidate's ranking :
http://www.utsystem.edu/tmdsas/TMDSAS%20Conduct of the Match-EY07.pdf

By the way, I just got an interview to baylor.. UHUULLL.. 🙂 And I've thought that it was a rejection letter for sure this late in the cycle...
Click to expand...

Wow, Baylor is really going to take this thing to the end aren't they.


Did anyone other than me not do AMCAS and just TMDSAS?
 
somemaybedoc said:
Ummm... Bump

Seriously, this thread seems to be losing its fire.

Nonetheless I can't think of anything productive to say. 🙄
Click to expand...

Unfortunately there's not much to do except wait. I guess I could obsess more over the order of my ranking.

Should I fill out FAFSA now or wait until the 15th? (please say wait, I'm not looking forward to that pain in the a$$)
 
future_dr_house said:
Unfortunately there's not much to do except wait. I guess I could obsess more over the order of my ranking.

Should I fill out FAFSA now or wait until the 15th? (please say wait, I'm not looking forward to that pain in the a$$)
Click to expand...
You could at least get the paper work started... not what you wanted to hear I'm sure 😉
 
what time is the match? do they update at midnight?
 
sime0n said:
what time is the match? do they update at midnight?
Click to expand...

I believe so...at least that is how it was last year, since I remember people finding out about their match results at that time.
 
I have a feeling the days leading up to match are gonna be as stressful as the days leading up to mcat results coming out
 
SportsMedMD said:
I have a feeling the days leading up to match are gonna be as stressful as the days leading up to mcat results coming out
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I think they will be more stressful. Even with a not so stellar MCAT you could still get into medical school. With no acceptances, you won't be going to medical school (at least in Texas that is [excluding Baylor]). So everything is riding on what shows up on the screen at midnight on the 15, instead of just what schools you have a shot at.
 
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