Too many acceptances ?

[dannyboy1]

from reading these threads it seems that some schools give out more acceptances than they have seats and expect that roughly half will go somewhere else. consequently these schools have very little waitlist move ment (i.e. if you give out 300 acceptances for 160 spots you will probably come close to filling the class and will not often go to the waitlist). I was just wondering, what happens if too many acceptees decide to matriculate and the school runs out of seats ?

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[mmmcdowe]

from reading these threads it seems that some schools give out more acceptances than they have seats and expect that roughly half will go somewhere else. consequently these schools have very little waitlist move ment (i.e. if you give out 300 acceptances for 160 spots you will probably come close to filling the class and will not often go to the waitlist). I was just wondering, what happens if too many acceptees decide to matriculate and the school runs out of seats ?

Nothing, the adcom might get a finger shaken at them, and they might be more conservative in the future. Usually, this is only like 1-2 extra matriculants.

 

[armybound]

Sometimes they will offer people something to defer for a year, like a scholarship.

 

[Pedsbro]

Sometimes they will offer people something to defer for a year, like a scholarship.

Yup, I've heard the vast majority of schools do this if too many decide to matriculate.

 

[RySerr21]

PHEW! I thought this was going to be a thread complaining about you have too many acceptances and can't decide where to go. I was gonna come in here and regulate.

 

[officedepot]

from reading these threads it seems that some schools give out more acceptances than they have seats and expect that roughly half will go somewhere else. consequently these schools have very little waitlist move ment (i.e. if you give out 300 acceptances for 160 spots you will probably come close to filling the class and will not often go to the waitlist). I was just wondering, what happens if too many acceptees decide to matriculate and the school runs out of seats ?

haha, this is impossible. By law medical schools cannot give out more acceptances than seats available. so if they have 160 spots that means 160 acceptances initially. All other acceptances are taken off the waitlist. So if a school has 300 acceptances in the end for a 160 seat class, that means that 140 people were taken off the" waitlist" at some point in time. It isn't some guessing game where they expect half of the students not to enter the school.

by the way, this is what I was told at several of my interviews.

edit: I correct myself. the 300 acceptances includes people who turn down accpetances before they are required to and before the interview season ends. As a result not all 140 people may have come from the waitlist.

 

[adizz mfresh]

I know that this situation happened to Northwestern in the last couple years. One of the classes was slightly too big, so the first and second year facilities had to be flipped to accomodate the large class.

But most schools overaccept and then see waitlist movement also; there are some people who already have 5 or more acceptances. So there will I think be some waitlisters accepted to almost all schools.

 

[dynezxice]

PHEW! I thought this was going to be a thread complaining about you have too many acceptances and can't decide where to go. I was gonna come in here and regulate.

LOL. I was about to do the same thing and even had a stick ready in hand.

 

[classdodger]

haha, this is impossible. By law medical schools cannot give out more acceptances than seats available. so if they have 160 spots that means 160 acceptances initially. All other acceptances are taken off the waitlist. So if a school has 300 acceptances in the end for a 160 seat class, that means that 140 people were taken off the" waitlist" at some point in time. It isn't some guessing game where they expect half of the students not to enter the school.

by the way, this is what I was told at several of my interviews.

edit: I correct myself. the 300 acceptances includes people who turn down accpetances before they are required to and before the interview season ends. As a result not all 140 people may have come from the waitlist.

this is just not true

in an extreme example, DUCOM class of 2011 over enrolled by like 26 or 27 something. they actually offered $10,000 scholarships to any student willing to defer a year but only 1 accepted.
the next year however they accepted many fewer applicants and drew a large number from the waitlist, obviously playing it safe.
the AMA and LCME allow a specific number of seats that match the schools resources and if over enrollment happens once its a warning but more than that and your dealing with possible probation.

 

[Dilophosaurus]

So, will they ever force someone to defer?

 

[VanBrown]

I am not sure about ALL schools being required by law to maintain their class size.. I mean what kind of law can tell a private school what to do? However, I do know that many state-subsidized schools do have a set limit on the # of people they can matriculate. This is the reason that schools string people out for so long... to construct their class. If you look at recent class profiles from various schools you will see that they will offer more acceptances than seats available and construct a waitlist that is long enough. Usually the # of accepted + # waitlisted is about 2x the #matriculated. I have never heard of a state school matriculating too many before and I would suspect it would be a big deal seeing as the average cost of a medical education from a state-subsidized school is really, really high.

 

[Happygrl284]

There is no law that says they can't accept more students than their seats available. All schools will accept more students than the seats they have available. It is the same as with undergraduate schools - based on previous years they know their rate of deposits versus the number of acceptances they hand out. Using this proportion they determine the number of acceptance they can provide and then if they receive less than expected they go to the waitlist. Med Schools are known to be conservative with this and therefore most schools experience waitlist movement.
A good example is what many have heard about BU last year - they over accepted and are therefore being more conservative this year - providing fewer interviews and possibly fewer acceptances.

 

[mets1986]

there is def no "law" I know of one school last year that accepted people when there were no more spots left, told them unless people withdraw they could re-apply in an early decision type way and have a high chance of getting in that way. but it was not a given they could just go to that school. its really just a matter of when you apply and a gamble on the specific school's part. many public schools can not afford to just add another student or two because of the high cost of medical education...

 

[littlealex]

lol officedpot got pwned

 

[medking]

I thought it went something like this:

Schools can accept however many applicants they want, as long as the class size predetermined for that year is the class size they get (ie: if the class size was set to be 100, it doesn't matter if the school accepts 100 or 5,000 as long as 100 students and only 100 students start on day 1)

 

[singularity2012]

I worked at my school's admissions office in college and am aware that most institutions utilize a highly accurate (excluding very special circumstances) computerized algorithm that predicts for a given application year how many students will apply to the school, how many will enroll if accepted, etc. etc., based on previous years' trends and the school's "perceived rank" among other competitor schools. There are other more obscure factors that go into this as well, making the predictions all-encompassing. So - as an example - if the program predicts that 30% will matriculate, just to be safe the school will adjust their admissions cycle to something below that, like 25%. That way, there is little risk of over-matriculation, and the school could then rely on its waitlist to fill the remaining spots.

 

[officedepot]

lol officedpot got pwned

maybe...

look, there's no federal law that I'm aware of or anything but I heard law at an interview. I may be mistaken but medical schools don't go by withdraw rates. The extra acceptances during the season are due to people withdrawing or not accepting their initial offer. However, those are still counted as an acceptance statistic. This happens because many people interview at multiple schools and get in to multiple schools. so if a school has 300 acceptances for 160 that means that 140 decided not to go to that school as seats opened up other acceptances were sent out. This happens because some great applicants apply to shoe-in schools and then end up getting into better schools. As a result they turn down schools they subsequently are accepted to because they have no intention of going to that school.

When you accept an acceptance offer, the school holds your seat. The school does not hold more seats for future students than they have seats available. Once a seat opens up the school can send out another acceptance. Schools are not willing to take a chance that more people will end up at the school than they have seats available. Now, not all schools may follow this system but this was what I was told on several interviews. Spots are filled by taking people from their alternate list.

 

[officedepot]

I worked at my school's admissions office in college and am aware that most institutions utilize a highly accurate (excluding very special circumstances) computerized algorithm that predicts for a given application year how many students will apply to the school, how many will enroll if accepted, etc. etc., based on previous years' trends and the school's "perceived rank" among other competitor schools. There are other more obscure factors that go into this as well, making the predictions all-encompassing. So - as an example - if the program predicts that 30% will matriculate, just to be safe the school will adjust their admissions cycle to something below that, like 25%. That way, there is little risk of over-matriculation, and the school could then rely on its waitlist to fill the remaining spots.

yeah this is very possible as well for medical schools. In any case schools do not want too many people accepted. Those of you who think that schools will send out 400 acceptances to fill a 180 seat class hoping (doesn't matter if it is based on past years or not) that 220 people will just withdraw their acceptance are incorrect.