The Thanksgiving Rule

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Kardio

Kardio

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If you haven't been invited to MD interviews yet, I welcome you to join me in having this conversation on repeat tomorrow.

md do thxgiving.png


Happy Thanksgiving SDN! Very grateful for this whole year.
 
And if you have not had any interview anywhere, tomorrow is a good day to give thanks for all the blessings of the past year. Then "Black Friday" is the time to be brutally honest with yourself and examine what it is about your application that made it a non-starter at the schools to which you applied and develop a strategy for improving your application for 2020 or 2021. Do give some consideration whether applying in 18 months is a better plan than applying 6 months from now which may be too little time to fix whatever can be fixed to improve your application.

And keep in mind, you are still a valuable and talented person, even if you haven't received an interview. It is your application that is lacking in some ways. You may be able to improve the application, or you may not be able to do so but that does not change the fact that you have gifts and talents that you can put to use to repair the world. Your job will be to figure out how to do that.
 
LizzyM said:
And if you have not had any interview anywhere, tomorrow is a good day to give thanks for all the blessings of the past year. Then "Black Friday" is the time to be brutally honest with yourself and examine what it is about your application that made it a non-starter at the schools to which you applied and develop a strategy for improving your application for 2020 or 2021. Do give some consideration whether applying in 18 months is a better plan than applying 6 months from now which may be too little time to fix whatever can be fixed to improve your application.

And keep in mind, you are still a valuable and talented person, even if you haven't received an interview. It is your application that is lacking in some ways. You may be able to improve the application, or you may not be able to do so but that does not change the fact that you have gifts and talents that you can put to use to repair the world. Your job will be to figure out how to do that.
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Asking for a friend since I'm a DO student, but basically she only applied to most of the florida schools, and I believe submitted their secondaries in late august, early september. Good stats 515 mcat (very balanced), 3.9+ gpa, duel major, orm, great ec, not weird, all the stuff you see in a good/great applications..no red flags. Yet she still didn't receive any interviews. Is it b/c she applied kind of late or what?
 
atstilllol said:
Asking for a friend since I'm a DO student, but basically she only applied to most of the florida schools, and I believe submitted their secondaries in late august, early september. Good stats 515 mcat (very balanced), 3.9+ gpa, duel major, orm, great ec, not weird, all the stuff you see in a good/great applications..no red flags. Yet she still didn't receive any interviews. Is it b/c she applied kind of late or what?
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She could gave a bad LOR, or bad essays
 
atstilllol said:
Asking for a friend since I'm a DO student, but basically she only applied to most of the florida schools, and I believe submitted their secondaries in late august, early september. Good stats 515 mcat (very balanced), 3.9+ gpa, duel major, orm, great ec, not weird, all the stuff you see in a good/great applications..no red flags. Yet she still didn't receive any interviews. Is it b/c she applied kind of late or what?
Click to expand...

When was she complete? I know people who submitted in late August who were fine so I don’t think it was the timing necessarily.
 
atstilllol said:
Asking for a friend since I'm a DO student, but basically she only applied to most of the florida schools, and I believe submitted their secondaries in late august, early september. Good stats 515 mcat (very balanced), 3.9+ gpa, duel major, orm, great ec, not weird, all the stuff you see in a good/great applications..no red flags. Yet she still didn't receive any interviews. Is it b/c she applied kind of late or what?
Click to expand...
Apply to more schools (about 15-20). Could be bad essays on secondaries, bad PS, bad activities descriptions, bad LORs. Or maybe she thinks her ECs are great when in actuality, they are not. And lastly, bad luck (which is increased by not applying to enough schools).
 
Goro said:
Have a happy and safe holiday, y'all!
Click to expand...
What would you say is the equivalent of the T-giving rule for DO schools? Because the cycle runs longer, I'm assuming its not half of ii's gone out by T-giving day.
 
This thread is nice, i want to contribute. Enjoy.

Twas the night before thanksgiving and a young pre-med did stress.
The big day was approaching, he needs an interview and no less!
He prays and prays that a last minute invite will come in,
But as the clock strikes midnight he knows 'tis a battle he will not win.
As the morning sun rises on the thanksgiving day, the devastated pre-med confronts his family with dismay,
Cheer Up! they encouraged,
Relax, have a beer,
Today we are thankful, tomorrow you can start preparations for next year!
 
mwsapphire said:
What would you say is the equivalent of the T-giving rule for DO schools? Because the cycle runs longer, I'm assuming its not half of ii's gone out by T-giving day.
Click to expand...
All I can give you is the experience with my school. If you submit your primary now, it will be at least six weeks before you get an II. And that will yield interviews in Mar/Apr, when we get a lot more picky.

What we see in that pool in springtime are people who are just realizing that MD is not in the cards. That reluctance to have DO schools as safeties manifests in other ways...this pool has a lot of people who on paper have fine apps, but they come across as lacking foresight and make bad choices, qualities not desired in medical students.

On the other hand, since the beginning of the year and even to right now, we have been interviewing a fair number of people who have really good MD caliber apps...like, UCSF or BU class. We don't convert many of those because we know that they we'll end up in MD schools, but they do have the foresight of using us as a backup, and lately we have been converting about 10-20% of them! To No Surprise, most of them are Californians, and they want to stay on this side of the Mississippi River.
 
Goro said:
All I can give you is the experience with my school. If you submit your primary now, it will be at least six weeks before you get an II. And that will yield interviews in Mar/Apr, when we get a lot more picky.

What we see in that pool in springtime are people who are just realizing that MD is not in the cards. That reluctance to have DO schools as safeties manifests in other ways...this pool has a lot of people who on paper have fine apps, but they come across as lacking foresight and make bad choices, qualities not desired in medical students.

On the other hand, since the beginning of the year and even to right now, we have been interviewing a fair number of people who have really good MD caliber apps...like, UCSF or BU class. We don't convert many of those because we know that they we'll end up in MD schools, but they do have the foresight of using us as a backup, and lately we have been converting about 10-20% of them! To No Surprise, most of them are Californians, and they want to stay on this side of the Mississippi River.
Click to expand...
I didn't mean with submitting my app.
I meant, we say that T-giving is the time when most MD interview invites have been sent out, so if you don't have an invite by T-giving, you should start to worry.
What would you say is the similar cutoff for DO schools? I've been complete DO for weeks, I just wanna know when is the point where I can say " Okay this isn't working out, time for plan B"
 
mwsapphire said:
I didn't mean with submitting my app.
I meant, we say that T-giving is the time when most MD interview invites have been sent out, so if you don't have an invite by T-giving, you should start to worry.
What would you say is the similar cutoff for DO schools? I've been complete DO for weeks, I just wanna know when is the point where I can say " Okay this isn't working out, time for plan B"
Click to expand...
Early Dec at best
 
atstilllol said:
Asking for a friend since I'm a DO student, but basically she only applied to most of the florida schools, and I believe submitted their secondaries in late august, early september. Good stats 515 mcat (very balanced), 3.9+ gpa, duel major, orm, great ec, not weird, all the stuff you see in a good/great applications..no red flags. Yet she still didn't receive any interviews. Is it b/c she applied kind of late or what?
Click to expand...

A little late. Also "she only applied to most of the florida schools". If that is less than 15 schools, and I'm sure that it is, that is one of her problems right there: too few irons in the fire.

Letters, essays, and numerous glaring errors (bad editing that left name of another school in a secondary, misspelled school's name, etc) could be issues too.
 
Smolpuppo21 said:
If people ever say “West of the Mississippi,” I think Missouri! Probably KCU? 😉
Click to expand...
why stop there?
Minnesota, Iowa, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Colorado, Montana, Utah, Wyoming Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Washington, Oregon, California. also Alaska and Hawaii.
Granted not all of those states have DO schools.

Let us keep in mind that speculating on someone's location is contrary to the terms of service. Please avoid getting the ban hammer.
 
LizzyM said:
why stop there?
Minnesota, Iowa, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Colorado, Montana, Utah, Wyoming Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Washington, Oregon, California. also Alaska and Hawaii.
Granted not all of those states have DO schools.

Let us keep in mind that speculating on someone's location is contrary to the terms of service. Please avoid getting the ban hammer.
Click to expand...
What about speculating in the privacy of my own mind? Jk.
Trying to enjoy T-giving sane II or R's from any schools, MD or DO. Making pumpkin pie , mashed potatoes , and the gravy for today's feast. Trying to stay busy. ( We do a small T-giving at home with just my parents/siblings).
 
atstilllol said:
Asking for a friend since I'm a DO student, but basically she only applied to most of the florida schools, and I believe submitted their secondaries in late august, early september. Good stats 515 mcat (very balanced), 3.9+ gpa, duel major, orm, great ec, not weird, all the stuff you see in a good/great applications..no red flags. Yet she still didn't receive any interviews. Is it b/c she applied kind of late or what?
Click to expand...
Not what your friend is going to want to hear, and maybe not really adding that much to the other responses, but, no, Labor Day timing is not the issue. No way to know based on what you shared what the red flag might be, but 0 for Florida is probably not just bad luck or a coincidence.

Assuming something doesn't break (you never know, it still might), the takeaway is that 515 and 3.9, with all the usual boxes checked, is not so awesome for an ORM that the rule of thumb of applying to 20-30 schools, due to an across the board 60% failure rate, doesn't apply to your friend. Also, just applying to IS schools in one state is not really a good diversification strategy.

Bottom line, if there is going to be another cycle, yeah, probably better to submit in July-August than August-September, but the higher yield changes will be to fix whatever is wrong with the app (as others said, essays, PS, LORs, whatever) and apply to way more schools, with a mix of public/private and IS/OOS, and, of course, where the stats fit the profile of the schools.
 
bioboy23 said:
My family’s thanksgiving is today...

“dO yOu KnOw WhIcH MeDiCaL ScHoOl yOuRe gOiNg tO yEt???”

View attachment 287958
Click to expand...
It looks like you got in at least so it's not that bad....( at least not as bad as the relatives peppering you with questions before you've heard any good news at all).
 
mwsapphire said:
It looks like you got in at least so it's not that bad....( at least not as bad as the relatives peppering you with questions before you've heard any good news at all).
Click to expand...
That is 100% true. Didn’t mean to come off the wrong way!

Another favorite is when somebody says “ah you should know, you’re almost a doctor.” Ehhhhh not even close, mate. Lol
 
bioboy23 said:
That is 100% true. Didn’t mean to come off the wrong way!

Another favorite is when somebody says “ah you should know, you’re almost a doctor.” Ehhhhh not even close, mate. Lol
Click to expand...

I'm a first year, and my parents having been referring to me as a doctor since I started. It makes me super uncomfortable lol.
 
Matthew9Thirtyfive said:
I'm a first year, and my parents having been referring to me as a doctor since I started. It makes me super uncomfortable lol.
Click to expand...
You really have to nip it in the bud before it gets rolling and the whole family is calling you a doctor prematurely lol!
 
KnightDoc said:
Not what your friend is going to want to hear, and maybe not really adding that much to the other responses, but, no, Labor Day timing is not the issue. No way to know based on what you shared what the red flag might be, but 0 for Florida is probably not just bad luck or a coincidence.

Assuming something doesn't break (you never know, it still might), the takeaway is that 515 and 3.9, with all the usual boxes checked, is not so awesome for an ORM that the rule of thumb of applying to 20-30 schools, due to an across the board 60% failure rate, doesn't apply to your friend. Also, just applying to IS schools in one state is not really a good diversification strategy.

Bottom line, if there is going to be another cycle, yeah, probably better to submit in July-August than August-September, but the higher yield changes will be to fix whatever is wrong with the app (as others said, essays, PS, LORs, whatever) and apply to way more schools, with a mix of public/private and IS/OOS, and, of course, where the stats fit the profile of the schools.
Click to expand...

If you're ORM (not white, ORM), things are rough unless you have some way to differentiate yourself. I have ORM friends with good stats and decent EC's who haven't done well at all, especially relative to their statistical peers.
 
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