Originally posted by the boy wonder
1. I am obsessed with UCSF so have read their web page 1000 times. One day the application appeared and I thought "what's that..."
2. Other people on SDN are just as weird as me, had similar experiences staring at the web page, and posted the info to SDN.
LOL. See it can pay to be obsessed. I know I was/am. I wish you all the best. Just for you info, in case you didn't know, last year's secondary had no essay question(s) unless you claimed to be socioeconomically disadvantaged or if you applied to the JNP program.
Things I've learned from the Office of Admissions and through word of mouth:
They get about 4500 primaries and screen them for gpa, mcat, state residency, personal statement, activities, and background.
To those that meet the cutoff, they send around 1400 or so secondaries and request that you send in LORs (I think 5 or 6 was the max). Then, they factor in your letters and 'maturity' as well as any other unique characteristics that positively impact on your application and offer around 500-550 interviews.
Based on the previously mentioned criteria and on the interview reports (I've heard that each interviewer ranks you on a scale of 1 to 4 and both of them have to add up to atleast 7 to be considered for an outright acceptance...another way of saying that is that you have to average a 3.5)..they either accept you outright (about 190-200/application cycle), place you on the alternate list (roughly 100 students) or reject you (200 or so)..I think I remember hearing that 20 to 30% of the alternate list ultimately gets accepted.
Many people on this forum such as BeckyG and Vader have been immensely helpful in providing information about UCSF to those of us who were 'obsessed' with UCSF (see LadyinRed, myself, and many others). In the spirit of reciprocity, I hope that I too can provide some perspective/advice regarding UCSF (though it would help to start classes first).
