TX Schools - Post-Interview Selection

[texan2414]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Hi,

As a prospective TX applicant for EY2016, I was going through the TAAHP TMDSAS Yearly Report for 2015.
Can be found here: http://www.taahp.net/TAAHP 2015 Report.pdf
And I want you to direct you to page 12 of the document which catalogs the Entry Year 2014 & 2015 applicant profiles.

One surprising statistic that caught my attention was that UTSW for EY2015 actually decreased the number of prematch/match offers by 104!!! Usually, schools tend to give match offers higher than their total number of entering students for that year. For the 230 seats available, UTSW this past year only filled 222 from the prematch/match process.

Anyways, the main reason I made a post is to discuss / inform myself how best to maximize my chances of receiving an acceptance after being offered the interview. Its obvious that the interview could be the deal maker/breaker for many applicants but I suspect there are other subtle factors that come into play. Take UTH for example, of all the interviewees, only 37% were accepted. I wanna know what happened to the other 63% of the interviewees.

What factors you think are of utmost importance for committee consideration after interview?
Some things that come to my mind are:
- Personal Statement.
- Breadth and depth of LORs.
- Professionalism / Communication skills / Level of maturity.
- Leadership / ECs.

I'd like to hear your thoughts. How does committee filter down applications after interview season? What makes one applicant more attractive from the next given they have similar academic metrics (MCAT/GPA).

I'm a little apprehensive myself after reading some of these statistics. Obviously, I want to maximize my chances of getting acceptance and I want to be well informed of this process.

Hoping to hear from you,

texan2414

 

[DrShephardWannabe]

As a student at a TX undergrad, I think the biggest issue I see with people rejected post-interview is the fact that they're 4.0 machines. Absolutely no racism intended, but I have literally met people (n= ~5) who barely speak English yet make 4.0s/30s and then they get to an interview. The adcom is going to try to imagine this person as his doctor, and having communication barriers is a huge hinderance. The other end of the 4.0 machine is the people who get II's because they have great stats but zero EC's. I personally know people who have gotten II's with less than 50 hours of clinical volunteering and a few hours of shadowing just before applying, then get rejected. n= ~10 for these types of people I've known with around half being accepted.

I also know about n=5 people with 28-30 MCATs and ~3.5-3.6s. But everyone I've known in this category that has gotten II's has had some awesome EC's or worked throughout college to support themselves (and applied as early as possible), every single one has been accepted.

Then I have another 2 friends who had a 3.49/30 and a 3.53/29, only applied to the UT schools, had average EC's and both only received UTHSCSA II's, then rejections.

Just some anecdotal evidence because I'm not an adcom, hope it helps!