The official "I am reserving a room in hell for medschools that..." thread

[qweewq11]

I am reserving a special room in hell for medical schools that:
- Don't use computer-based secondary applications. The 2ndary exists on their computers somewhere as a nice MS Word or PDF file. Why not make it available???
- Use bizarre personal photo sizes. Why can't medical schools standardize this? Some want 2x3, others 2x2, others 1.5x1.5. Standardization is your friend!

Any others?

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[SouthernGirl]

Let's not forget:

-Schools whose secondaries basically ask you to reformat your AMCAS application...they don't ask anything new, they just ask you to list your activities/experiences/pre-requisites in their own handly little graph. I can' t tell you how many times I would look at a secondary, then snarl, "It's ON my freakin' AMCAS!!!!" Seriously, though, why did I pay over $600 just on AMCAS if they're not even gonna look at it?

 

[bridgie]

-schools that don't serve coffee and donuts in the morning (drexel)

 

[mws99]

-Schools that have unscheduled time during the interview day for you to sit on your ass in a waiting room and do nothing.

2.5 hours at Wash U

8-9 intro talk
9-10:30 nothing
10:30-11:00 interview
11:00-12:00 nothing
12:00 lunch and tour

I could have gotten out of there a lot earlier.

 

[Joe Joe on da Radio]

1) when they DO serve coffee in the morning, they don't provide milk or cream!

2) give absolutely weak tours of the "campus."

3) start the day with ice-breakers.

 

[DrMom]

Originally posted by Joe Joe on da Radio
3) start the day with ice-breakers.

You're kidding! How frightening!

 

[14931]

Originally posted by Joe Joe on da Radio
...

3) start the day with ice-breakers.

i knew it, med school is just like college!

why dont u tell them we already know ourselves, from SDN!!!

 

[Adcadet]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: we need med school admissions reform!

http://www.studentdoctor.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=49682&highlight=admissions

 

[Adcadet]

I hate schools that invite everybody and their mother to fill out secondary applications (and pay $50-100, when they damn well know that at least 50% of those filling out secondaries don't stand much of a chance.

I also hate schools that interview everybody and their mother. Why is it that GW ends up having hundreds of people come out to DC (~66%), only to reject them? Is it really that impossible to be a little more selective in who you interview?


P.S. I don't have anything against mothers in general.

 

[bridgie]

There was a mother at my Drexel interview

I swear, no interviewees claimed her. I am surprised they let her do the day. I feel like it is this secret process that no one gets to see unless you are applying.

 

[mws99]

I also hate schools that have you tour their hospitals. Every hospital in the country looks the same!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Tweetie_bird]

--schools that don't respond back within "X" amount of time after we send in our secondary. (X to be determined by us premeds).

--schools that make you list all your classes, their credits, and grades on their application using a damn TYPEWRITER!! It's sad that in the current age with technology soaring, schools have to make us find the ONE typewriter on our campus that turns out broken.

 

[cabruen]

--- schools that are mean to Tweetie

 

[Tweetie_bird]

Originally posted by cabruen
--- schools that are mean to Tweetie

aawwwww.
You're already in my favorite book, cabruen. Don't work too hard.

 

[Jet915]

Boy, I cant wait to go to my drexel interview now!

Jetson

 

[Ronin]

Originally posted by SouthernGirl
"It's ON my freakin' AMCAS!!!!" Seriously, though, why did I pay over $600 just on AMCAS if they're not even gonna look at it?

EXACTLY, southerngirl, that is so true! Especially for the UCs.
geez, why don't they give us tertiary applications and ask us to repeat our secondaries!? they could make more money that way, you know.

 

[Sweet Tea]

GOOD LORD RONIN!!! don't give them any ideas!!!! sheesh...

i hate schools that say that take months and months and months and months to review your file, and then they lose your file, and then when they find your file they have to review it AGAIN. bah.

 

[TroutBum]

Amen, to everything that everyone's said! There are also two things that all med schools do on interview day that I hate:

1. It's pretty common knowledge that you have to wear a suit to your interview. When you get there, they poke fun at the fact that everybody is wearing a suit. Hey, I'm dressed like a monkey for you, do you have to rub it in?

2. People asking you every five seconds, "Do you have any questions?" By the end of the interview day, I'm so sick of this question that I want to break something.

I also hate schools that send out meaningless letters or bits of information--which I know a bunch of you had fumed about in other places.

 

[Yogi Bear]

schools that provide ~1 hr long financial aid info sessions when all the info is readily available on the handouts they give out. if u've been to one financial aid session, u've been to them all.

a synopsis of these sessions are:

- u're allowed to borrow up to like 180k from the gov't including your undergrad years. for each year of med school, it's like 38k.
-any additional money comes from institutional or private loans
-CREDIT CARDS ARE BAD
-Yes we require parental tax statements; or no, we dont' require parental tax statements.
-yes we require parental contribution; no, we don't require parental contribution.
-Yes we off merit-based scholarships; no, we don't offer merit based scholarships.
-our average student debt is x; nat'l student debt is like 125k.
-u end up paying twice what u borrow. i.e. if u borrowed 150k, u end up paying 300-350k.
-CREDIT CARDS ARE AWEFUL
-our default rate is x%.

--any school that asks u to pay $25 for their student hosting program, their host wasn't able to pick u up from the airport, and u end up spending about the same amount as money on the host program + taxi as if u got a hotel room w/ free shuttle service to school and airport. c'mon!

 

[mvervaine]

i am speaking only for myself, but i hate schools that just send you a letter with your interview date or don't allow input as to what day you CAN interview. so far i've had to postpone my overdue vacation, cancel a doctor's apt, and miss a company benefit.

 

[*fatmike*]

I am currently reserving several rooms in hell for medical schools that send me "rejection" letters. Come on, what the hell is that all about!!?

P.S. Enjoy sleeping on your flaming bed University of Chicago, Wake Forest, and Assistant Dean of Admissions at University of Wisconsin - Madison.

 

[lola]

schools that keep you waiting until february to find out whether or not you will get a secondary. yes ucla, i'm talk about you!!! what the hell is wrong with that school? i mean, i sent in my primary in july, and i'm going to have to wait until february to hear anything? that is SO wrong.

 

[Nefertari]

Schools that feign screening for 2ndaries. Stanford in mind here--they claim that they send out 2ndaries to 60% of apps, but i'm thinking it may be more than that. Schools should either not screen or screen heavily (like the UC's). It's so discouraging to have to write a painful essay in 25 lines, pay the bucks & get your hopes up for nothin'!!!

Also, damn those snooty schools who shun community colleges! (this applies to Stanford as well) Stanford lovers--don't flame me. I'd probably think differently & be totally in love if i had been given a chance there.

Btw, i second the petition to damn those schools that make us repeat amcas info to an eternity of nothing but endlessly reading through our 2ndaries!

 

[abw]

I hate:

- Schools that reject you, but keep emailing you updates like you still care what's going on at their school

- Schools that tell you you will here by a certain date/ certain number of weeks and are basically lying (one of them is 2 months late in telling me!!)

- Schools that ask you to pay $100 for sending them your email address

and finally

- Schools that just string you along/ put you on hold

 

[CaptainAmerica]

...schools that send you a nice post card to say "We are clearing our alternate list because we have completed admissions for the year, and regret to inform you that you will not be granted a seat in the class of 2006." This arrived six weeks ago--in OCTOBER!!! Thanks for the bulletin, U of Washington!

 

[biofreak126]

...schools that absolutely require you to get recommendations filled out on their stupid evaluation form even when professors have already written them months or sometimes years ago.

 

[Random Access]

Originally posted by cabruen
--- schools that are mean to Tweetie

Doh! I was going to put something along those lines. I guess I should sign onto SDN more often to beat out cabruen.

 

[Woots32]

Originally posted by biofreak126
...schools that absolutely require you to get recommendations filled out on their stupid evaluation form even when professors have already written them months or sometimes years ago.

AMEN

Also:

- schools that screw up the time that your interview starts, and when they realize their mistake, they do nothing to correct it so you arrive two hours early.
- schools that refuse to answer direct questions about financial aid (especially merit scholarships) but tell you to contact them if you are accepted.
- schools that provide the student guides with lists of things to say that they like about the school
- schools that leave you to sit in the same crappy little conference room for hours with nothing to do.

 

[qweewq11]

Originally posted by biofreak126
...schools that absolutely require you to get recommendations filled out on their stupid evaluation form even when professors have already written them months or sometimes years ago.

Hey can anyone tell me what schools these are? It'd be extremely helpful...Iowa is one, any more?

 

[qweewq11]

btw I got in touch with the Devil and let him know that we will prolly be needing a few extra rooms for all the evilness that med schools do!

 

[biofreak126]

Originally posted by qweewq11
Hey can anyone tell me what schools these are? It'd be extremely helpful...Iowa is one, any more?

I was talking specifically about University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, but I'm sure there are more.

 

[Adcadet]

what about schools (Sinai?) that send out a mass email that reveals everybody who's applying that year. I thought that was pretty damn stupid.

 

[UCLA Paratrooper]

Schools that reject you TWICE! (Wisconsin)

UCLA Paratrooper

 

[abw]

How about one school which when I called to ask exactly what "on hold" meant, told me that it meant i had been placed in a category on hold - thanks for the brilliant insight, my lack of analytical skills probably got me into that category

 

[BRUINGOLD]

abw-- are you talking about UC Irvine by any chance? UC Irvine, above all, deserves several rooms in hell for the hell they put us through every time we call them.

 

[whatfun]

Speaking of Minnesota, I would like to reserve MULTIPLE rooms for them! They are the absolute WORST admissions staff I have dealt with so far. The people I've spoken with have been rude and unhelpful and they can't keep track of my STUPID recommendation forms. One week, I called to check if they received a form from a recommender, and this women said, in a nasty tone, that they hadn't gotten it but their online status page had a glitch, with the page accidentally saying they had received it (as if I'm suppose to know that!) Well, I called back the very next day and, sure enough, a different person said they had the form. I know it was there before because my two forms were sent at the same exact time and my first had gotten there weeks earlier.

Every other time that I've called or emailed them I can never get a hold of a person or I never get a response.

On a related note, I have a Princeton Review guide for medical schools (sort of useless, but got it b/c it has some good stats and basic info about each school) and it said that Minnesota only gets 700-800 completed applications every year! Why is that??

Originally posted by biofreak126
I was talking specifically about University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, but I'm sure there are more.

 

[Katie]

add Temple and Maryland for sending me rejections not once, not twice, but three times! ok, ok, I get the point here!

 

[Joe Joe on da Radio]

Originally posted by whatfun
Speaking of Minnesota, I would like to reserve MULTIPLE rooms for them! They are the absolute WORST admissions staff I have dealt with so far. The people I've spoken with have been rude and unhelpful and they can't keep track of my STUPID recommendation forms. One week, I called to check if they received a form from a recommender, and this women said, in a nasty tone, that they hadn't gotten it but their online status page had a glitch, with the page accidentally saying they had received it (as if I'm suppose to know that!) Well, I called back the very next day and, sure enough, a different person said they had the form. I know it was there before because my two forms were sent at the same exact time and my first had gotten there weeks earlier.

Every other time that I've called or emailed them I can never get a hold of a person or I never get a response.

On a related note, I have a Princeton Review guide for medical schools (sort of useless, but got it b/c it has some good stats and basic info about each school) and it said that Minnesota only gets 700-800 completed applications every year! Why is that??

same problem here with me...i've basically given up on my application there. it's futile.

 

[randomlogik]

Originally posted by TroutBum

2. People asking you every five seconds, "Do you have any questions?" By the end of the interview day, I'm so sick of this question that I want to break something.

I got soooo sick of that at my last interviews!! every single person i met asked me if i had any questions. after asking the same question to three people and getting the exact same answer...i wasnt going to ask it anymore. it's like gosh people, it IS possible that i just dont have anymore f@*&ing questions to ask at that time!!!
sheeesh...

 

[wolferman]

Schools that have secondary applications with blanks too small to print or type anything meaningful in them. (one school only allowed 15 characters per blank and they wanted to know about your classes and community service activities). As a result you end up creating stupid abreviations like: "Hmn Prs Mod Med" when the actual course name was "Humanistic Perspectives on Modern Medicine". Are they just checking our skills at filling out annoying paperwork? After all, as doctors, I'm sure we'll encounter this frequently.

 

[DarkChild]

oh.... I got one:
a large conference room in hell for schools who:
a) send you Adobe secondaries
AND
b) make those files uneditable, forcing you to use it in a type writer..
what is so difficult about not locking the file, or just making it a word doc.

 

[Nefertari]

Originally posted by wolferman
Schools that have secondary applications with blanks too small to print or type anything meaningful in them. (one school only allowed 15 characters per blank and they wanted to know about your classes and community service activities). As a result you end up creating stupid abreviations like: "Hmn Prs Mod Med" when the actual course name was "Humanistic Perspectives on Modern Medicine". Are they just checking our skills at filling out annoying paperwork? After all, as doctors, I'm sure we'll encounter this frequently.

Drexel!!!

 

[PluckyDuk8]

Schools that send you a rejection letter that includes "If we can be of assistance in explaining our decision with respect to your application, please call our office." Then you take them up on their offer, and they answer is "there is no glaring reason why we rejected you," and proceed to give silly explainations that don't make sense. Not to mention they didn't call me back at all when they said they would.

 

[Adcadet]

Originally posted by Joe Joe on da Radio
same problem here with me...i've basically given up on my application there. it's futile.

Hmm.....that really sucks that you guys have had such horrible experiences with the U of M. My experience with their office has been generally very good. Well, since I'm so vocal about medical school admission reform, perhaps I can focus some energy on my own school.

P.S. about those 700-800 completed applications per year....are those completed secondaries? Because I know that the U of M now screens who get secondaries.

 

[Mutterkuchen]

Schools whose financial "aid" package consists exclusively of loans, and act like they would really help me out by securing them. I know that loans are officially Financial Aid, but is anyone really doing me a favor by loaning me money that I must repay with interest.

 

[Woots32]

Originally posted by JBJ
Schools whose financial "aid" package consists exclusively of loans, and act like they would really help me out by securing them. I know that loans are officially Financial Aid, but is anyone really doing me a favor by loaning me money that I must repay with interest.

 

[Lara]

Originally posted by Katie
add Temple and Maryland for sending me rejections not once, not twice, but three times! ok, ok, I get the point here!

And (as if those who've read my posts don't know) McGill in Montreal for waitlisting me two years in a row. When you don't get in, it's *far* worse then a post-interview rejection - not to mention that my AMCAS would have been submitted way earlier!

Sorry Temple gave you the boot btw - especially three times! At least you can get the connections going easily if you want a Boston residency.

Lara, who is however happy to be snowless for once

 

[Katie]

ooh, here's a good one, better even than Temple and Maryland.. By the time I got my rejection letter from Finch-CMS in 2001, I had already been invited to 7 interviews (2 top 50) and was on hold for 2 others. A few weeks after I got the rejection letter, they had the nerve to send a note to ask me to call them for "advice on how to improve your application." A friend of mine who got canned by Finch pre-interview after receiving 3 acceptances from higher ranked schools and about 10 interview invitations also got this letter. Sounds like he really needed to work on that application, huh?

 

[DW]

i have to chime in:

i hope spot in hell is reserved for some school named after a place in the Bible located on 100 street in new york city. This school we'll just call it mount kilimanjaro to protect the innocent, i emailed, called, begging and pleading that they might interview me during my not one, but TWO scheduled trips to interview in the nyc area and one trip to philly so far. NO, you have to wait they said, we're slow as molasses, blah blah blah.

Surely enough, a week after i made my final flight reservations (which i did at the very last minute before the insane thanksgiving rates kicked in), i get the email "congratulations, you have an interview, etc".....

yes, thats great, thank you for facilitating another 250 dollar flight to new york, i really need to run up my skymiles account some more

 

[Adcadet]

Originally posted by DW
i have to chime in:

i hope spot in hell is reserved for some school named after a place in the Bible located on 100 street in new york city. This school we'll just call it mount kilimanjaro to protect the innocent, i emailed, called, begging and pleading that they might interview me during my not one, but TWO scheduled trips to interview in the nyc area and one trip to philly so far. NO, you have to wait they said, we're slow as molasses, blah blah blah.

Surely enough, a week after i made my final flight reservations (which i did at the very last minute before the insane thanksgiving rates kicked in), i get the email "congratulations, you have an interview, etc".....

yes, thats great, thank you for facilitating another 250 dollar flight to new york, i really need to run up my skymiles account some more

Ah yes, Mt. *****. They lost three of my letters of recommendation, but kept telling me that they are problem just "being processed" and that I should just wait. Yeah, thanks. Two months later they finally admit that they MIGHT not have them. At least they aren't as bad as Jefferson, who told me that my application was complete and that they had all my letters only to tell me a month later that they didn't have a few of my letters.

Three words: Bitch Azz Ho's!