Vanderbilt Rejection

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
K

kypdurron5

Full Member
15+ Year Member
Joined
Dec 3, 2005
Messages
1,293
Reaction score
1
Points
4,531
  1. Resident [Any Field]
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
So after months of waiting I finally heard back from Vanderbilt today. It's not that I'm conceited enough to have assumed that I should have gotten an interview, but I am a little surprised to get an out-right rejection. This is based more in the question "what else could I have done?" It's not that a 33 and a 3.91 are stellar stats, but there surely must be some people out there accepted with less. I'd like to know from those who have already received rejection letters: what were your stats, and did Vandy provide any guidance as to why you were rejected? Thanks.
 
They give interviews to everyone who receives a secondary, so don't feel too bad. I was also rejected by them, with pretty similar stats (3.66, 33). I say "**** em," but thats just me.
 
I got the feeling that Vanderbilt looks at the application as a whole, its not just about the numbers. They are looking for something unique in your application, that goes well beyond numbers. 3.9 and 33 are definitely great stats, so I wouldnt think that you were rejected based on your numbers. What about ECs/research? Vandy surely places a lot of emphasis on research.
 
got on waitlist with similar stats kyp..was wondering if they actually reject anyone who interviews or do they waitlist everyone who interviews that is not accepted?
 
I think Vandy weighs MCAT higher than GPA. I got similar stats and was also rejected. They like ppl with high MCAT scores... like higher than 36
Well, sucks for us...
 
I think this year serves as a testament to how unpredictable adcoms are, and even more of a testament that high hard numbers don't necessarily predispose an interview invitation- seems like the swing of things is towards the non-trads and things outside of the hard numbers (PS, recs, ECs, etc). Sorry to hear about your story OP, but with your stats, I wouldnt lose any sleep over it 😉 Good luck!
 
will not embarrass your mother. Who knows? It is hard to figure. I have an interview in the near future with Vandy - we will see how it goes.

Searun
 
Liquidshock said:
I think Vandy weighs MCAT higher than GPA. I got similar stats and was also rejected. They like ppl with high MCAT scores... like higher than 36
Well, sucks for us...
Click to expand...


I have a high GPA and low MCAT (30) and I got an interview. I got the feeling that GPA is very important, even more so than the MCAT.
 
chocolate85 said:
I have a high GPA and low MCAT (30) and I got an interview. I got the feeling that GPA is very important, even more so than the MCAT.
Click to expand...


Vandy puts a big emphasis on test taking ability because it often translates to Step 1 scores. Vandy always does extremely well on Step 1, which helps lock in great residencies...
 
I have yet to hear from them past interveiw yet.... early october... i think im reected... my friend wo interviewed a day after I did, got a call last week for an acceptance.
 
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
Njcaldwell, what day did you and your friend interview? I interviewed the week of 10/9 and I'm anxiously waiting. I called the office a few days ago, and I was told that it would take at least 6 weeks. 🙁
 
njcaldwell said:
I have yet to hear from them past interveiw yet.... early october... i think im reected... my friend wo interviewed a day after I did, got a call last week for an acceptance.
Click to expand...

i would not freak. your stats look awesome. I think it really depends how long the other 3 reviewers of your file take to assess you
 
Dude, I have seen so many rejections from Vandy this year, both on here and on MDapps. I know their seconday = interview policy, but it seems like a lot of people have been rejected...especially a lot of worthy applicants. Anyone else thinking they might be padding their stats a little more this year?
 
If you didn't go to crazy good school, they don't want anything to do with you. On their website, one of the FAQs is "Does it matter where I went to undergrad?". Instead of "we consider the whole application" or something like that, it simply lists the schools were their undergrads come from. I added it up and it is like 80% Ivies, Duke, Vandy, Emory, and WashU. They pretty much require you to be from an Ivy League or one of those big schools (not to mention the top liberal arts schools).

I remember looking at this one profile from MDapp's. 39/4.0 (or near) but from Auburn University. He got accepted by Harvard AND Hopkins, but not Vandy. They are VERY particular about schools and research.

http://mdapplicants.com/viewprofile.php?id=3130

All I can say is wow.
 
Rejected here as well... though it was completely and totally expected with a 28 and 3.88. I figured it was worth a shot, seeing as it was my dream school...
 
I interviewed on 10/9 and my friend interviewed on 10/10....
 
i think i'm a major underdog after looking at this thread, but somehow i got an interview with them. for all of us still waiting to hear, it definitely isn't a rejection just yet. it's too time consuming and emotionally draining to second guess the adcoms, keep your chins up and maybe a nice phone call will come your way, if not, well there are plenty of other schools.
 
Smokey said:
If you didn't go to crazy good school, they don't want anything to do with you. On their website, one of the FAQs is "Does it matter where I went to undergrad?". Instead of "we consider the whole application" or something like that, it simply lists the schools were their undergrads come from. I added it up and it is like 80% Ivies, Duke, Vandy, Emory, and WashU. They pretty much require you to be from an Ivy League or one of those big schools (not to mention the top liberal arts schools).

I remember looking at this one profile from MDapp's. 39/4.0 (or near) but from Auburn University. He got accepted by Harvard AND Hopkins, but not Vandy. They are VERY particular about schools and research.

http://mdapplicants.com/viewprofile.php?id=3130

All I can say is wow.
Click to expand...

I goto a liberal arts school in Tennessee and I got in on their first round of admissions....they look at the individual not the school.
 
quantummechanic said:
I goto a liberal arts school in Tennessee and I got in on their first round of admissions....they look at the individual not the school.
Click to expand...

Well one particularly good liberal arts school in Memphis comes to mind. Don't know if you go there or not, but the top liberal arts schools are just as 'prestigious' as universities.
 
quantummechanic said:
I goto a liberal arts school in Tennessee and I got in on their first round of admissions....they look at the individual not the school.
Click to expand...

Yeah...I agree...they have additional considerations. I got waitlisted but not rejected. I went to a cheap community college for most of my basics and to a public school to finish my BS...I have zero research...and my MCAT is below thier average.
 
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
I got an interview with a 3.6, 35 mcat. humanities major; little research, no clinical, and some community work. they might actually be reading the amcas essay for literary value!
 
i'm the map said:
I got an interview with a 3.6, 35 mcat. humanities major; little research, no clinical, and some community work. they might actually be reading the amcas essay for literary value!
Click to expand...

Maybe the essay gave me my shot...since my MCAT writing sample ended up way out on the left side of the scale! :laugh: 😱
 
I got an interview here w/ 33MCAT and 3.94GPA. Graduated from Vandy, no real research, mediocre ECs (at least comparing to most people on SDN). I interviewed the week of 10/9 and got my waitlist letter Friday 🙁
 
Smokey said:
Well one particularly good liberal arts school in Memphis comes to mind. Don't know if you go there or not, but the top liberal arts schools are just as 'prestigious' as universities.
Click to expand...

haha well I do go there, but it ain't exactly Swarthmore or Williams either
 
quantummechanic said:
I goto a liberal arts school in Tennessee and I got in on their first round of admissions....they look at the individual not the school.
Click to expand...

I don't know if that's true. I stayed with a student host who was a first year and said like 10-20% of her class was from Harvard. Coincidence? I think not.
 
Smokey said:
Does it matter where I got my undergraduate degree?
If you would like to view a list of where our students have attended undergraduate school, click here.

http://staging.mc.vanderbilt.edu/medschool/admissions/undergraduate_stats.php
Click to expand...



It looks like a wide distribution. If we want to establish a correlation between the undergrad attended and who is accepted, we would “at least” have to standardize the percentage of accepted applicants as a function of their undergrad...not just straight matriculants…since for all we know, that matriculant distribution may simply be an artifact of who applied there and then actually showed up.
 
Go Time said:
It looks like a wide distribution. If we want to establish a correlation between the undergrad attended and who is accepted, we would “at least” have to standardize the percentage of accepted applicants as a function of their undergrad...not just straight matriculants…since for all we know, that matriculant distribution may simply be an artifact of who applied there and then actually showed up.
Click to expand...

Ten schools account for 60% of the class.
 
Go Time said:
How does that relate to who applied and who was accepted there?
Click to expand...

Vandy is a big-time school for Southern States. The only other ones are Emory and Duke. Logic tells me that there will be a lot of students applying there from state schools in florida, georgia, alabama, south carolina, tennessee, kentucky, north carolina, louisiana, and arkansas. Yet how many of these schools are represented versus the Dartmouth's of the world? Sure you can give the accepted/applied argument, but statistics aren't needed (or available in this case) where common sense prevails. A lot of kids in the south (at state schools w/o the big tuition who can now afford the big name medical school) want to go to Vanderbilt.
 
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
Go Time said:
How does that relate to who applied and who was accepted there?
Click to expand...

USNews published that over three times the number of folks who matriculate are accepted.
 
So did you just reply to your own question?:scared:

If so, you answered it wrong. The USNews online system reports 291 acceptances for 105 spots.
 
Smokey said:
So did you just reply to your own question?:scared:

If so, you answered it wrong. The USNews online system reports 291 acceptances for 105 spots.
Click to expand...

I added to it. I expect the IS to have a bias in matriculants...so I am referring to the OOS numbers.
 
Go Time said:
I added to it. I expect the IS to have a bias in matriculants...so I am referring to the OOS numbers.
Click to expand...

So..maybe it all boils down to applicant preference (or financial need) and not the school's preference if only 1 out of 3 actually shows up.
 
Smokey said:
Vandy is a big-time school for Southern States. The only other ones are Emory and Duke. Logic tells me that there will be a lot of students applying there from state schools in florida, georgia, alabama, south carolina, tennessee, kentucky, north carolina, louisiana, and arkansas. Yet how many of these schools are represented versus the Dartmouth's of the world? Sure you can give the accepted/applied argument, but statistics aren't needed (or available in this case) where common sense prevails. A lot of kids in the south (at state schools w/o the big tuition who can now afford the big name medical school) want to go to Vanderbilt.
Click to expand...

the bias is due to a number of factors, many generalities (since many from non-selective colleges get into Vandy, as shown by the link in a previous post):

1. students from ivies (and to humor you, schools like mine) tend to have better mcat scores than those from public schools

2. students from ivies tend not be concerned with money in the first place (tuition paid by parents or lack of concern about debt) so they choose places like Vandy over U of TN

3. students from ivies tend to be more "academic" so they do research and such more often, Vandy likes this since they want to produce academic physicians.

4. as said before, Vandy has less competition from comparable schools in the region: WashU, Baylor, Emory, and Duke are the only other top private schools in the area. this is why WashU has such a high mcat average, there is much less competition from nearby top schools that one sees with Hopkins, Harvard, Columbia etc which are all relatively close to each other.

I stand by my assertion that I don't think there is a bias against anyone that goes to a state school, I'm sure that the fact that I goto a top tier LAC helped me get in, but I'm more sure that things such as my research experiences, academic record, community service, and leadership roles were a much larger factor to the adcom than the fact that I goto a top 50 LAC.
 
I have a 3.65 and a 35 and got rejected outright. It must be the GPA, or the fact that I'm a total loser and my app sucked! :laugh:
 
sorry to hear that witt105. i still have my fingers crossed for my shot at vandy though it's getting less and less likely after all this silence.
 
quantummechanic said:
the bias is due to a number of factors, many generalities (since many from non-selective colleges get into Vandy, as shown by the link in a previous post):

1. students from ivies (and to humor you, schools like mine) tend to have better mcat scores than those from public schools

2. students from ivies tend not be concerned with money in the first place (tuition paid by parents or lack of concern about debt) so they choose places like Vandy over U of TN

3. students from ivies tend to be more "academic" so they do research and such more often, Vandy likes this since they want to produce academic physicians.

4. as said before, Vandy has less competition from comparable schools in the region: WashU, Baylor, Emory, and Duke are the only other top private schools in the area. this is why WashU has such a high mcat average, there is much less competition from nearby top schools that one sees with Hopkins, Harvard, Columbia etc which are all relatively close to each other.

I stand by my assertion that I don't think there is a bias against anyone that goes to a state school, I'm sure that the fact that I goto a top tier LAC helped me get in, but I'm more sure that things such as my research experiences, academic record, community service, and leadership roles were a much larger factor to the adcom than the fact that I goto a top 50 LAC.
Click to expand...

Explain this to me:

http://www.mdapplicants.com/viewprofile.php?id=5451

http://www.mdapplicants.com/viewprofile.php?id=6230
 
Smokey said:
Explain this to me:

http://www.mdapplicants.com/viewprofile.php?id=5451

http://www.mdapplicants.com/viewprofile.php?id=6230
Click to expand...

its hard to say off of results from this year so far

the first mdapps was only waitlisted which doesn't mean that she is going to be rejected, it is only November!

The striking difference is the mcat scores and the difference in research. mdapps isn't an amcas EC report, but the guy from columbia appears to have done more research and is obviously dedicated to it on a major level (I too am doing an honors thesis, its a lot of work and I wouldn't do it unless I really liked the research), the girl from Valpo did research for two summer but only presented it to her "premed colloqium"

What it comes down to: Vandy really likes students who want to do research in med school. I can't tell very well from mdapps, but our columbia applicant might want to do academic medicine whereas the Valpo applicant might want to do more a clinical career. I really don't know and all I can do is speculate.

Its great that you found some guy from columbia with a lower mcat than someone from Valpo...it still does not refute my point though.

Finally, I believe a big question mark here lies in the Vanderbilt secondary which is not requested until the interview offer is made. Vandy asks for an essay on the research you have done (research again, what do ya know! :laugh: ) There is also an autobiography section, which I think throws a wrench into a lot of people's applications since virtually no other schools ask for such an essay.

My point once again is that you don't have to goto Harvard to get into Vandy, I could bring up plenty of Ivy League ugrad Mdapp profiles of Vandy Med rejects as well. As the link with the list of schools represented at Vandy in years past in a previous post shows, you can goto a place like U of Memphis and get into Vanderbilt.
 
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
WashU and Duke don't want academic physicians?
http://www.mdapplicants.com/viewprofile.php?id=5092
http://www.mdapplicants.com/viewprofile.php?id=3537

How about Harvard and Johns Hopkins?
http://www.mdapplicants.com/viewprofile.php?id=3130

Sure there are exceptions, but it appears Vandy is less often willing to accept/"take a chane" on an applicant from a lower ranked school. On their "entering class of 2010" when talking about the caliber of the class Vandy bragged about mcat scores, gpa, and that 40% of the class came from a certain 8 school list and Vandy.
 
Recieved secondary invite from Vandy - for MSTP program...

does the secondary ALWAYS == interview?

the text in the MSTP secondary is as below;
"Online Applications are sent only to those applicants we invite to interview. If you receive a letter inviting you to schedule an interview, we ask that you call the MSTP office 1-800-373-0675. The MSTP will provide a significant contribution towards your travel expenses. Please remember that to be invited for an interview your application file must be completed including letters of recommendation."

the part that I find disturbing is the "if"

by the way - I am NOT from an ivy (a no name state school in fact)
 
i'm definitely below their avg stats, at a state school, 32 mcat, 3.5 gpa (3.4 BCPM), i got an interview, but as expected...now i'm waitlisted.

anyone know how good/bad the waitlist is here???
 
Wait - do we have to send them our LORs before or after we receive their 2ndary?
 
future_dr_house said:
i'm definitely below their avg stats, at a state school, 32 mcat, 3.5 gpa (3.4 BCPM), i got an interview, but as expected...now i'm waitlisted.

anyone know how good/bad the waitlist is here???
Click to expand...

SOmeone told me last year they took 10 out of 200 ppl off the waitlist. so things dont look good for us. I got waitlisted too 🙁
 
sonyvaio2700 said:
SOmeone told me last year they took 10 out of 200 ppl off the waitlist. so things dont look good for us. I got waitlisted too 🙁
Click to expand...

Damn! good luck sony i hope we get the thick packet out of these 200 ppl
 
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

M
Recent appeal of rejection
Replies
8
Views
1K
Goro
Goro
A
  • Poll Poll
Tufts vs Vanderbilt
Replies
6
Views
887
chilly_md
chilly_md
L
Stanford vs Vanderbilt
Replies
6
Views
1K
riv_jordan
R
B
Is there a reason that interviews with a lot of compliments end in rejection/waitlist?
Replies
15
Views
2K
beptune
B
M
Baylor vs. Vanderbilt
Replies
7
Views
2K
obiwan
obiwan
Top Bottom