University of Oklahoma and comments on AMCAS

[Hopkins2010]

I noticed that OU changed up its website and now has the following info:

"The Admissions Board for 2002 began their deliberations August 9th during a three hour orientation workshop. The College of Medicine was welcomed and charged by Dean Vannatta. The 54 person board and 40 alternates decided on voting procedures, established the evaluation instrument for applicants' interviews, the awarding of interviews based on a formula of GPA and MCAT performance, and finalized the procedures for the coming year. General orientation included an overview of the curriculum, the educational program objectives for the college, and a presentation of the use of our online curriculum Hippocrates.

For those of you who have friends or family members applying to colleges of medicine, you will have heard of the problems created by the American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS) implementation of a new database managing system. Of the 115 medical schools using centralized AMCAS application services, none of us have access to our complete applications. The applicants are anxious, the schools are anxious and AMCAS has employed additional expertise to solve the problems. The entire process will be electronic both in receiving informaton, processing it locally, and providing it to board members. Fortunately, the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine is well prepared to handle this and has received information on approximately 300 applicants as of August 10, 2001.

Should you have any questions regarding the admissions process, please call Dr. Nancy Hall (405) 271-1417, Associate Dean for Admissions and Medical Education, or Ms. Dotty Shaw Killam (405) 271-2331, Director of Admissions."

Does OU use secondaries? They seem to rely heavily on numbers for determining interviews, moreso than perhaps other schools. Anybody else applying to OU this year?

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[lilycat]

Last year OU did not have a secondary. They just ask for more money and your letters of rec. Also, if you are an out-of-state applicant, you are strongly encouraged to write a letter explaining your interest in the school, or connection to the state.

 

[Hopkins2010]

Also found the following info on their website:

"After preliminary application material has been received from AMCAS, the College of Medicine Admissions Office will send the applicant a request for the next level of information:

1. A letter of recommendation from a faculty member.

2. A letter of recommendation from the pre-medical advisory committee. If the applicant does not have access to a premedical advisory committee, letters from two additional faculty members are acceptable. Additional letters of recommendation may be submitted by the applicant but are not required.

3. A nonrefundable application fee of $50.00. Applicants receiving an AMCAS fee waiver will, upon request, receive a College of Medicine application fee waiver.

4. If you are enrolled in a graduate program, you must submit a letter from the program director or chair of the department stating you are in good standing and that he or she is supportive of your application."


OK now this makes no sense to me. They want a faculty letter IN ADDITION TO a premed committee letter? I used 6 faculty members for references for the composite letter, but they all filled out an online evaluation and did not write out separate letters because thats the way our premed committee has it set up.

I'm applying MD/PhD to some programs, but not at OU. So I have 4 other letters from faculty besides the premed composite, but they are all focused on research experience and intellectual aptitude and speak less to my personal qualities. I'm using these to send out to MD/PhD programs, and I guess I could use one of these for OU, but I'm thinking that I need to get another letter of rec that is not based on research.

So I guess that means I'll have to get YET ANOTHER reference. That means I will have a total of 11 references. I know of no other school in the United States that REQUIRES letters in addition to a premed committee letter. If there are any more schools with weird letter of rec requirements I'm going to be in trouble because I dont know any more profs (who know me well) than the ones I've already hit up for letters.

So should I use the MD/PhD letter that assesses research or get a new faculty member to write one?

Anybody gotten an acknowledgement or request from OU for more information?

 

[Hopkins2010]

Originally posted by lilycat:
•Last year OU did not have a secondary. They just ask for more money and your letters of rec. Also, if you are an out-of-state applicant, you are strongly encouraged to write a letter explaining your interest in the school, or connection to the state.•

I am an Oklahoma state resident, but the more I look at OU the more I realize why they have a serious problem keeping the top in-state talent. Note that only 85% of matriculants will be OK residents, as compared to 90-95-100% for other states. The only state schools that have lower state resident percentages are the elite programs like Michigan who can command respect from anywhere around the country. I think that says something about the attractiveness of OU's program (i.e. in general in-state applicants who get accepted to places besides OU do NOT choose OU).

Listed below are their course requirements:

General Zoology/Biology 1 semester

Embryology, Genetics, Comparative Anatomy, Cellular Biology, or Histology
1 semester

Inorganic Chemistry 2 semesters

Organic Chemistry 2 semesters

General Physics 2 semesters

Sociology, Psychology, Anthropology, Humanities, Philosophy, or Foreign Language (any combination) 3 semesters

English 3 semesters


I took a genetics course SPECIFICALLY for OU and OU only due to their course requirements. I look at their website again and now they require 3 semesters of English. Technically speaking, I only have 2 semesters of English but am enrolled in an interdisciplinary program that combines English literature with history, art, etc. Do you think this would count or are they looking ONLY for courses in the English dept?

In addition, they are very particular about what types of courses they want for the nonsciences.

I know that its important to apply to schools in your home state, but OU must be by far the most aggravating because all these uncommon requirements they have. I dont know of any other school in the whole country (i'm applying to 26 others) that are so specific and inflexible in their course reqs.

Needless to say, I'm glad I dont have to write an essay about why I'm applying to OU because I cant think of a good reason other than its easier to get into than other schools (better than 50% acceptance rate for state residents) and the fact they have low tuition.

 

[Jalopycat]

I don't know Baylor...You should probably call and ask them so you get the correct info. I would think as long as one of your letters is addressed to them it wouldn't matter, but I don't really know. Good luck.

So what formula are they using this year for interviews? I'm a little worried. I mean, my stats meet their basic requirement, but if all they see are numbers, mine are low. The rest of my application makes up for it I hope, but they won't even see that for awhile since none of the schools are apparently getting the complete applications. Now I'm worried they'll can me before they see the whole thing. Yikes....
Do you know what the formula is??

 

[Hopkins2010]

Originally posted by Jalopycat:
•I don't know Baylor...You should probably call and ask them so you get the correct info. I would think as long as one of your letters is addressed to them it wouldn't matter, but I don't really know. Good luck.

So what formula are they using this year for interviews? I'm a little worried. I mean, my stats meet their basic requirement, but if all they see are numbers, mine are low. The rest of my application makes up for it I hope, but they won't even see that for awhile since none of the schools are apparently getting the complete applications. Now I'm worried they'll can me before they see the whole thing. Yikes....
Do you know what the formula is?? •

Sorry I dont know what the specific formula is. The average MCAT for accepted students is 9.6 and the average GPA is 3.5 I think. So I would guess that the numbers for interviews use a slightly lower cutoff than those numbers. However, OU seems to contradict itself on its screening policy.

On one page, it says that they screen GPA, MCAT and letters of rec to see who gets an interview, but on the other page it says they use a specific formula with just MCAT and GPA to determine interviews. So I'm not sure which version is correct.

Also, it states that they dont start interviewing people until November. I wonder why they wait so long to start? I'd rather get early interviews so maybe I'd hear from them sooner whether I got accepted or not. Then I could use that as a base starting point on whether or not to spend money on secondaries and interviews at other schools.

I guess if OU is the only place I get accepted to then I will have to take a summer course in English. Hopefully they dont require you to have all those courses before matriculation and wont hold it against me as long as I have them done before then.

 

[Jalopycat]

You probably don't need to worry. A friend of mine got in last year and had only 2 semesters of English and didn't have one of the required biology courses, I think it was cell biology. They told her she could use an English lit. course as an English class. Also, after some further prodding, they withdrew their requirement for her to take an extra biology. If you've had English lit, or something like it, You're probably okay.

 

[C U in MD school]

did anyone send in a hard copy of their amcas application to OU?

 

[Hopkins2010]

Originally posted by C U in MD school:
•did anyone send in a hard copy of their amcas application to OU?•

Not me. I'm not sure if they accept paper apps. They never gave any indication that they were going to use alternate procedures.

 

[jephyboy]

When I visited the school and talked to the secretaries at OU, they told me that he computer is what decides who gets the interview. They use a minimum MCAT and GPA cutoff. Then using a formula (MCAT and GPA as the two factors only) they rank order the applicants. Then they start sending out letters of interviews from the top of the list until the class is full. Now, as for out of state applicants, I think that they are in there own pile and have different cutoff scores.

The letters of recs are used only after you get and invite for interview. So in conclusion, OU used numbers to assign interviews and then looks at the AMCAS application after the interview to determine acceptance.

 

[Hopkins2010]

FYI.. today I got a letter from OU asking for money and letters of rec.

It also states that they havent received a damn thing from AMCAS besides name and email info.