Uic

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1st quartile (surprisingly).

I was almost hoping for a 4th quartile...just so it could put me out of my misery sooner, haha. Doh, gotta stop being so negative, sheesh.
 
No mail for me in the west coast today~~maybe tomorrow!
 
DieselD said:
Good luck! Is that your cat or just a random pic?
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Thanks!

It's my cat, and his name is Parfee, haha! It makes me laugh when I see Parfee asking questions! 😀
 
Parfee said:
Thanks!

It's my cat, and his name is Parfee, haha! It makes me laugh when I see Parfee asking questions! 😀
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haha. I usually have my dog as my pic on other sites...never got around to putting an avatar on here though. Cute cat. I'm allergic, but I like his name!
 
I just spoke with an individual from the admissions office. Perhaps everyone else knew this, but individuals in each tier are not ranked. An admissions subcommittee meets as spots become available to decide who from the tier is going to be chosen.

Also, he said they are currently at the anticipated class size. Therefore, rather than having to wait for the number of accepted students to reach the class size, they will start pulling from the waitlist as soon as the spots become available.

Hopefully this will be soon! 😳
 
Can anyone verify how many people are on the waitlist? Does anyone know information about it, such as movement and how many people they took in past years? Where did you hear that from?
 
sunhorse said:
Can anyone verify how many people are on the waitlist? Does anyone know information about it, such as movement and how many people they took in past years? Where did you hear that from?
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The office of admissions said there were <100 individuals on the waitlist. Otherwise, they are vague about details.

As for the movement, the only information I have is what they provide in the waitlist letter-- "Unfortunately, we are unable to predict how many alternate list candidates will be invited to join the 2008 entering class, however, our past history show that those candidates in the 1st and 2nd quartile have a more reasonable chance of getting into the class."

I remember reading somewhere that last year there were ~50 individuals taken from the waitlist, but hopefully someone else can verify.
 
That 50 students line is taken from the line that you alluded to. I have no idea how many got off the waitlist last year (I don't think anybody's ever even said), but logic would dictate that if theres ~<100 people on the waitlist, and the waitlist is divided into quartiles (~<25, ~<25, ~<25, ~<25), then the first two quartiles would indicate a movement of ~<50 people. I'm skeptical the number is that high, to be completely truthful.

Has anybody been told they're not in the first quartile? I find it odd that everybody on this thread who ended up in a waitlist made the cut into the top 25 people on the waitlist...

Can I propose a conspiracy theory? For what it's worth I bet there's many, many less people on the waitlist than UIC is implying, the waitlist is currently unranked, and they're either going to take the people who are the most vocal and interested in UIC after being told they were in the first quartile or they'll take people who match similar characteristics to the person who just dropped out (e.g. female from ivy just dropped out, take female from ivy....URM just dropped out, pick similar URM).

Just a theory 🙂 Either way, if I were you guys on the waitlist right now I'd put a bullhorn to UIC's ear (in writing) about how interested I was and how qualified I am.
 
I was thinking the same thing about everyone being in the first quartile.
 
Ok I looked at last year's "wtf uic" thread (a lesser version of this year's monster thread) and nobody who was waitlisted claimed to be any lower than 1st quartile.

Similarly on http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=285651&highlight=quartile&page=2 that thread, alternate listers from the class of 2010 application year talk. Again, nobody is listed as anything less than 1st quartile--they all laugh about how evidently it's the biggest quartile ever and how UIC won't tell them how many are in their quartile, just that their individual one is unranked. I'll also note that that year UIC initially overaccepted pretty mightily, so don't get discouraged by the gnashing of teeth about how little movement there was.

An addendum to my conspiracy theory: There are 800-900 people that UIC interviews. Of those, 600 are accepted. That leaves 200-300 people who do not get in post-interview. I think when they talk about the "first quartile" they're talking about the top 1/4 of unaccepted candidates post-interview, not the top 25% of the waitlist. That would mean you're currently on an unranked waitlist of ~50-75 people, while the remaining 125-250 were rejected.

Frankly, (now that I know I'm never going there I'm gonna give a small piece of my mind on here) this mysterious bullcrap of not giving a specific result on their status pages, or of telling you you're in the top quartile and that the first two quartiles have a reasonable chance of acceptance...when there's only one actual grouping....it's all BS. There's no reason an admissions committee needs to act mysteriously and underhandedly like that. The applicants they're dealing with are adults--and should be treated like ones...
 
I called today. Hmmm.... About 150 on the list. Did not know whether they were overaccepted as she is not involved in that. O well Thanks Bond8204 for snapping me back to realism (and I mean it, no sarcasm at all)... I think I should start preparing my AMCAS materials again next week.
 
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Any chance they just send letters to the rest of the wait list later? Maybe they only send letters to the 2nd - 4th quartiles as needed?
 
Any chance they just send letters to the rest of the wait list later? Maybe they only send letters to the 2nd - 4th quartiles as needed?
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The thought had occurred to me. That's why I checked last year's thread and a thread from the class of 2010. Like I said before, from late May to August in both threads, nearly everybody said they were in the 1st quartile. At no point did anybody say something like "I've been told I was waitlisted...or I'm still decision pending...and haven't received a letter yet."

I also love how this
I called today. Hmmm.... About 150 on the list.
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completely contradicts this
The office of admissions said there were <100 individuals on the waitlist.
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I'm inclined to believe the latter (the person who answered the phone today might've been misinformed).

I could be totally wrong about all of this too...This was just my 2nd time applying to UIC, and the "Wow lots of us are in the 1st quartile" thing rang a bell.

Again, here are the two threads I was referencing:

2011: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=346149&page=12
2010: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=285651&highlight=quartile

I wouldn't be discouraged by this if it's true, as I do think acceptance is still a possibility, but yes Diesel (and others in a similar bind), I wouldn't let this delay your AMCAS or reapplication preparation.
 
Bond8204 said:
The thought had occurred to me. That's why I checked last year's thread and a thread from the class of 2010. Like I said before, from late May to August in both threads, nearly everybody said they were in the 1st quartile. At no point did anybody say something like "I've been told I was waitlisted...or I'm still decision pending...and haven't received a letter yet."

I also love how this completely contradicts this

I'm inclined to believe the latter (the person who answered the phone today might've been misinformed).

I could be totally wrong about all of this too...This was just my 2nd time applying to UIC, and the "Wow lots of us are in the 1st quartile" thing rang a bell.

Again, here are the two threads I was referencing:

2011: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=346149&page=12
2010: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=285651&highlight=quartile

I wouldn't be discouraged by this if it's true, as I do think acceptance is still a possibility, but yes Diesel (and others in a similar bind), I wouldn't let this delay your AMCAS or reapplication preparation.
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So how many of the ~50 off the waitlist last year were on SDN?
 
This is frustrating... I am scheduled to take the MCAT again June 13. Obviously I would rather NOT take it. Should I gamble?

I am in the notorious '1st quartile' also. I am also wait-listed at MSU, and SLU.

What shall I do?

hmmm....
 
IhateMEDschools said:
This is frustrating... I am scheduled to take the MCAT again June 13. Obviously I would rather NOT take it. Should I gamble?

I am in the notorious '1st quartile' also. I am also wait-listed at MSU, and SLU.

What shall I do?

hmmm....
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What do you know about the other 2 waitlists?
 
So how many of the ~50 off the waitlist last year were on SDN?
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My point before...that brought up all of this...is that I think that 50 number is bunk. That 50 number doesn't come from some guy from last year coming in and saying "Hey they took 50 off last year" it comes from somebody figuring, as you guys did, that the waitlist had about 100 people and that the 1st 2 quartiles ( = 50 waitlisters) were moved. As talked about above, there's huge inconsistencies with the quartile idea to begin with. So while I do think there will be movement, that number will not necessarily be 50. Could be more. Could be less. Could be 50. My conspiracy theory is that UIC tells everybody they're in the 1st quartile and that the 1st two quartiles have a reasonable chance of acceptance. They then sit back and see who wants it most, or draw from the pool to replace a specific dropout.

The two years I linked above differ substantially because of their specific scenarios. For the 2010 class, there was hardly any movement. If you look at the last 3 pages of last year's wtf uic, you'll see a few to several people moved off the waitlist from SDN. Either way, I don't think "number of people from SDN to move off the waitlist in the past two years" is a good barometer to predict the volume of movement this year (a measurement that's really completely unpredictable anyway).

This is frustrating... I am scheduled to take the MCAT again June 13. Obviously I would rather NOT take it. Should I gamble?

I am in the notorious '1st quartile' also. I am also wait-listed at MSU, and SLU.

What shall I do?
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That is a crappy situation. First and foremost, I think it would be very, very ill-advised not to retake the MCAT if you were planning to in order to reapply, and you know that the MCAT is your weakness.

Second, I'd figure out from the schools exactly what the "waitlist" means. Are there 200 people it's comletely unranked? Are there 50 and you're ranked #3?

My two iron points in all of this is that:
1) I would be politely screaming at these schools (UIC specifically) in how interested you are. and
2) I don't think this first quartile bull**** is enough of a reason to put off starting and submitting an AMCAS if you plan to reapply for 2013 if UIC doesn't work out. Edit: I don't think it's a reason to start despairing either. That's why I put 1) first.
 
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Bond8204 said:
My point before...that brought up all of this...is that I think that 50 number is bunk. That 50 number doesn't come from some guy from last year coming in and saying "Hey they took 50 off last year" it comes from somebody figuring, as you guys did, that the waitlist had about 100 people and that the 1st 2 quartiles ( = 50 waitlisters) were moved. As talked about above, there's huge inconsistencies with the quartile idea to begin with. So while I do think there will be movement, that number will not necessarily be 50. Could be more. Could be less. Could be 50.

The two years I linked above differ substantially because of their specific scenarios. For the 2010 class, there was hardly any movement. If you look at the last 3 pages of last year's wtf uic, you'll see a few to several people moved off the waitlist from SDN. Either way, I don't think "number of people from SDN to move off the waitlist in the past two years" is a good barometer to measure the volume of movement this year.
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Well I meant it more of an "ok so this many people got off SDN, maybe multiply it by 2 or even 3 to get a rough estimate". I know its trivial, but just to have something to at least go on in my mind.
 
Well I meant it more of an "ok so this many people got off SDN, maybe multiply it by 2 or even 3 to get a rough estimate". I know its trivial, but just to have something to at least go on in my mind.
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Right. I totally get your point...and would definitely be doing the same thing if I were in your situation 🙂

But it's kind of similar to trying to use UIC's match list from 2007 to predict how many emergency medicine matches they'll have in 2008...see what I mean? It's just totally different scenarios. If you want to try that, though, go to the thread I linked yourself and count starting around page 12. I'd bet it was somewhere between 3-6.

Edit: If I could help with a little perspective, you should try not to preoccupy yourself with thoughts like "I wonder what percentage chance I have for this coming out well for me." The fact is, stuff like that isn't under your control. What is under your control is showing your interest and qualifications to UIC, while meanwhile doing everything you can to strengthen your application and reapply in a timely manner so that you'll be in good shape next year if need be. There's a temptation to preoccupy yourself with the former...try to focus on the latter.
 
Here's my situation:

SLU: ranked, but 'confidential.'

MSU: not ranked

UIC: conspiracy.

Apparently both schools (MSU and SLU) have had some serious wait-list movement already. But the people on the phone wouldn't even help me gauge my chances. So I'm basically counting those two schools out.

Obviously if any give me the thumbs up, I'm there. But what if they don't?

I don't want to apply again 'just in case' because I don't have the MONEY to gamble. My MCAT isn't 'weak,' but I've been teaching the Kaplan Prep course for the last two years so I am sure I can rather easily increase my scores. But I seriously don't even want to bother.

This blows.

So what's everyone's verdict?

Retake the stupid thing? Probably. Why not. My seat is reserved.

But I refuse to start the AMCAs yet because of $$$$. Why invest the initial $thousand$ if I get a call in two weeks anyway?

As I have already mentioned. THIS BLOWS.

Help a girl out.
 
Oh one more thing, I called UIC (about 7000 times) and they are insisting that the Admissions committee is no longer meeting.

That is, everything is RANKED. Apparently letters of interest would not help according to the person I spoke with.

Has anyone else heard differently?
 
Gee! Finally got my waitlist letter today! And I'm in the 1st quartile as well. This is going to be interesting.

About the magic number "50", I was the one who posted it, based on what I was told during interview. The lady (I think Ms. Singleton) told us that almost accepted 50 people off the waitlist last year, while the year before that hardly anyone got off.

It's amazing/frustrating to see how inconsistent the school is giving out information......
 
It's amazing/frustrating to see how inconsistent the school is giving out information......
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Inconsistent is definitely the word. With a hint of purposeful deception. It's like a politician almost.
 
haha i knew something was definitely shady when i ended up in the 1st quartile lmao.


*sigh* i'm so confused.
 
This bites! I have a hard time believing that they would lie to all of the applicants, but it seems to be the case. However, it doesn't make any sense why. 😕

Could they be trying to keep as many applicants as possible? Doesn't it make more sense to be realistic about an applicant's probability of being accepted, thereby encouraging them to apply again?

arg... rather bad news for a gloomy day in MN...


oh yeah- I called the school back. Now they are saying ~150 individuals are on the waitlist, as discussed above. However, the individual I spoke to yesterday (he was some sort of admissions counselor, not a secretary) was the guy that mentioned it is <100. Since he knew a fair amount about the admissions subcommittees, I'm optimistic that his answer is correct. HOWEVER, when I asked the secretary today if they sent letters to the other quartiles, she paused and said "umm... I think that they would." Hmm.. rather suspicious that she wouldn't know.
 
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This thread just reminded me of something Garie said after our interviews which sounded like trivia at the time, but now could be something more, haha. Someone asked him how they really decide who to choose post-interview or during the waitlist. Garie said that recently the adcom showed him a crazy complex formula basically generating a number at the end for each applicant.

If every applicant is assigned a formulaic number... then isn't that sort of ranking by default?

Or maybe i heard entirely wrong and am desperate for any glimmer of hope, haha.
 
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Hi everyone, I was offered a spot at UIC a few month back, which I gladly accepted. However, i have since received acceptances to schools in Canada and thus will decline my offer to UIC.

Good luck to everyone on the waitlist! I totally know how it feels to be waiting but hopefully everything will work out in the end.

PS. in case anyone is wondering, I was an In-state applicant and was assigned to the Peoria site

Take care and good luck
 
Congratulations on your acceptances Inzi!!! Good luck up North =)

Canadians are so nice (for the most part).
 
inzi said:
Hi everyone, I was offered a spot at UIC a few month back, which I gladly accepted. However, i have since received acceptances to schools in Canada and thus will decline my offer to UIC.

Good luck to everyone on the waitlist! I totally know how it feels to be waiting but hopefully everything will work out in the end.

PS. in case anyone is wondering, I was an In-state applicant and was assigned to the Peoria site

Take care and good luck
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What school did you get accepted to in Canada? Most Canadian schools only take Canadian citizens and permanent residents. Are you going to U of T? (I would have loved to have gone there, since I lived and worked in Toronto for quite a while, but I had heard they have a strong preference for alumni of their undergraduate school, so I didn't bother applying.)
 
Is anyone else still decision pending?😕😕😕😕😕😕
 
sooo... i got into SLU today. I almost hope I don't hear from UIC (so I wont have to make a decision). However, if they call, what would you guys do? SLU or UIC?
 
IhateMEDschools said:
sooo... i got into SLU today. I almost hope I don't hear from UIC (so I wont have to make a decision). However, if they call, what would you guys do? SLU or UIC?
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Which one would be least expensive for you? That's the one I'd choose.

And congratulations! You're going to be a doctor.
 
IhateMEDschools said:
sooo... i got into SLU today. I almost hope I don't hear from UIC (so I wont have to make a decision). However, if they call, what would you guys do? SLU or UIC?
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First off, congratulations.

I was in your position...I picked SLU. Are you favoring one over the other?
 
Did SLU call you to inform you? At what time and from what number? I have a missed call.
 
sunhorse said:
Did SLU call you to inform you? At what time and from what number? I have a missed call.
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Number: 314-977-9840
Time: early AM

yeah they called me. But the lady left a message, so if/when you get the call you'll know it (good luck).

Also, to the rest who questioned my situation - I am from cali (So OOS -- ew.). I think you guys are right -- I don't think the schools are significantly different quality wise. However, SLU is in the city, whereas UIC would put us waitlisters in some small town (which I kind of like).

I think I'm just going to stay f-it and go with SLU. First come first serve. However, I am also waiting on MSU (my top choice). But at this point, I am soooo sick of waiting and uncertainty (as you all probably are). So to hell with it.

SLU it probably is.

Thanks guys and good luck!
 
Well, add me onto the "1st Quartile" Alternate list! What a bunch of phooey... It's so disappointing to learn that the whole quartile thing is probably some sort of strange hoax! Don't they know we all talk to each other about our waitlist letters? Jeez.

I've been a paramedic for years, and the rule at my job is there's just no predicting what's going to happen next, so be prepared for everything... a busy day is just as likely as a slow day. I've accepted that same mentality for my two waitlisted schools (UIC and NYCOM, no acceptances)... There's just no way I'm going to know what happens next, so I might as well not worry about it. I hope everyone else can deal with this stress in their own way, because its miserable what this does to people.

I was going to start getting my AMCAS ready anyway, but this bit of discouraging news will definitely light a fire under me to get it out early this year (I was really late last year due to Sept MCAT). I also haven't gotten my LOI out to UIC yet, but I will hop on that right now!
 
Hey everyone,

Every time I deal with the admissions office, I become increasingly convinced of their incompetence. I'm curious as to what the experience has been of others as to how the admissions office contacts applicants to notify them that they have selected for an interview? Back when I applied, I discovered that I was invited for an interview by checking my status online. I never received an e-mail or letter, which is rather infuriating for obvious reasons. What was your experience?
 
OrthoJock said:
Hey everyone,

Every time I deal with the admissions office, I become increasingly convinced of their incompetence. I'm curious as to what the experience has been of others as to how the admissions office contacts applicants to notify them that they have selected for an interview? Back when I applied, I discovered that I was invited for an interview by checking my status online. I never received an e-mail or letter, which is rather infuriating for obvious reasons. What was your experience?
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Wondering if there's any movement~~ I'm out of the country, waiting is driving me crazy. Does anyone know when they would start taking people off the waitlist?

As for the interview invite, I received a letter and called the office to schedule the date. I didn't use the status check back then. I'm glad I actually got the letter or I wouldn't have found out about the interview.

Good luck everyone!👍 :luck:
 
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