Waitlist Support Group 2017-2018

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arredand said:
Just to confirm from an earlier topic: so if i'm on a waitlist at one MD school, and am about to begin or already attending a MD pre-matriculation program at another school, I can no longer choose or be accepted to go to the waitlisted school if they pull me off the waitlist?
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You and I are thinking alike lol. I signed up due to the deadline just in case but aamc says: Withdraw your application from consideration at all other schools or programs as soon as you enroll, or start an orientation program prior to enrollment, at a U.S. or Canadian school or program.
This makes it seem like until you start the program you are OK but I am going to call and ask them if signing up jeopardizes my waitlists
 
SCN1a said:
I’m really pulling for you dude you deserve it!!! You got this. You’re super supportive on the threads and I know you’d make a great doc.

In the mean time I just graduated winter quarter and find myself with nothing to do lol I’ll be preping for the career fair that’s coming up if nothing else! My point is we gotta try and occupy our time, this month is going to be extremely slow
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Thank you so much! I'm rooting for you too! Good Luck!!!
 
dundermifflinthisispam said:
one interview, one waitlist...FEELING THE BURN 🙂

I honestly needed this thread, you’re all wonderful!
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I was in the same shoes 2 years go. Pro tip: stay away from whiskey. It became my best friend during the last couple months of that cycle and my love handles are STILL paying for it 😛
 
sss1219 said:
I was in the same shoes 2 years go. Pro tip: stay away from whiskey. It became my best friend during the last couple months of that cycle and my love handles are STILL paying for it 😛
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It seems... I am too late...

Screen-Shot-2015-04-17-at-10.22.10-AM.png
 
2 WL 1 Pending decision likely a WL
 
boogiecousins94 said:
I realized the waiting is so bad because we're literally at the point of the whole journey where we literally can't do anything else to improve our chances for this current cycle, we just have to wait 🙁
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I know! And it sucks not knowing our rank on the waitlist so we don’t even know if we should have our hopes up for a specific school
 
GalacticDoc said:
It's actually ridiculous to not give rankings...it's like they want us to suffer
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That's what I don't understand about unranked waitlists- how do they go through everyone in one meeting? That must mean the waitlist is quite small <100 I would guess or there is some very small type of tier to distinguish people because some schools have 200 people on a waitlist so I don't understand how a committee goes through everyone when a seat opens up unless I'm interpreting it wrong
 
drgreyy said:
One interview, one waitlist! Is anyone here retaking the MCAT and currently studying?
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I was about to but it looks like I won't be able to afford to apply this coming cycle any longer it's pretty much this one or I'll have to wait a few years.
 
boogiecousins94 said:
That's what I don't understand about unranked waitlists- how do they go through everyone in one meeting? That must mean the waitlist is quite small <100 I would guess or there is some very small type of tier to distinguish people because some schools have 200 people on a waitlist so I don't understand how a committee goes through everyone when a seat opens up unless I'm interpreting it wrong
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They probably have some way to stratify the applicants. Ex: If a women from California declines an acceptance they pull a women from California from the waitlist with similar stats.
 
drgreyy said:
I held out sooooo much hope and am just now starting to study again. When did you start studying?
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I started studying lightly in February and more focused from mid March as I had a feeling the interviews didn't go that well. After getting wait listed from my top school where I clicked extremely well with my interviewers in September, I knew it was only down hill from there.

Off course I had dreams about getting accepted to one of the other 2 schools and hitting that "cancel" button on AAMC. But alas, I'll be taking this dreaded beast called the MCAT again.
 
Joining the club with my 3II --> 3WL. I try to reassure myself knowing it's NYMC/Buffalo/Upstate and they all have a lot of waitlist movement but still...We'll find out next month :dead:
 
I have a general question about letters of intent (LOI): I'm aware sending a LOI to multiple programs would be dishonest and don't plan to do this, but does sending a LOI necessarily hurt one's chances at programs other than the one to which one sends a LOI? Since admissions directors talk to each other and, as mentioned during my interview days, will often discuss applicants who have written letters of intent to determine if an applicant has sent a LOI to more than one program, I cannot help but think a LOI could do more harm than good. For example, if I sent a LOI to program X, and program Y found out, then program Y decides not to accept because they know I'd rather go to program X, and program X decides ultimately not to accept because they had a high yield this year, I'd have to kiss my chances of getting off either WL goodbye.

Can someone less neurotic weigh in?
 
XALT said:
I have a general question about letters of intent (LOI): I'm aware sending a LOI to multiple programs would be dishonest and don't plan to do this, but does sending a LOI necessarily hurt one's chances at programs other than the one to which one sends a LOI? Since admissions directors talk to each other and, as mentioned during my interview days, will often discuss applicants who have written letters of intent to determine if an applicant has sent a LOI to more than one program, I cannot help but think a LOI could do more harm than good. For example, if I sent a LOI to program X, and program Y found out, then program Y decides not to accept because they know I'd rather go to program X, and program X decides ultimately not to accept because they had a high yield this year, I'd have to kiss my chances of getting off either WL goodbye.

Can someone less neurotic weigh in?
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Just send it to one school if you're going to at all. There's no need to be so anxious considering LOIs won't do much for you at this point.
 
XALT said:
I have a general question about letters of intent (LOI): I'm aware sending a LOI to multiple programs would be dishonest and don't plan to do this, but does sending a LOI necessarily hurt one's chances at programs other than the one to which one sends a LOI? Since admissions directors talk to each other and, as mentioned during my interview days, will often discuss applicants who have written letters of intent to determine if an applicant has sent a LOI to more than one program, I cannot help but think a LOI could do more harm than good. For example, if I sent a LOI to program X, and program Y found out, then program Y decides not to accept because they know I'd rather go to program X, and program X decides ultimately not to accept because they had a high yield this year, I'd have to kiss my chances of getting off either WL goodbye.

Can someone less neurotic weigh in?
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I think it's school/ area dependent. I remember reading a post about someone who sent LOIs to all the schools he was waitlisted at only to get an email from one of them telling him that he did and was found out after a couple of the schools talked to each other. Don't know if he was blacklisted or not but that was mentioned in the comments. Some schools put an emphasis on LOIs more than others so to them it could really be disingenuous to send it to multiple places. On the other hand, I'm sure most schools couldn't care less to cross reference and analyze the situation so that could just be an outlier type situation.
 
medschoolzombie said:
I think it's school/ area dependent. I remember reading a post about someone who sent LOIs to all the schools he was waitlisted at only to get an email from one of them telling him that he did and was found out after a couple of the schools talked to each other. Don't know if he was blacklisted or not but that was mentioned in the comments. Some schools put an emphasis on LOIs more than others so to them it could really be disingenuous to send it to multiple places. On the other hand, I'm sure most schools couldn't care less to cross reference and analyze the situation so that could just be an outlier type situation.
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For me, I am in a semi-unique situation. My wife is trying to get into a Biochem PhD program and obviously we want to attend the same school. So, for every school that I have interviewed at and she has interviewed/been accepted at, I wrote them a letter just explaining the situation and how we both want to attend the same school together. I never stated "we will both come here if we are both accepted" rather I just said "we want to attend the same school." I hope that's ok....
 
Hobbsyy said:
For me, I am in a semi-unique situation. My wife is trying to get into a Biochem PhD program and obviously we want to attend the same school. So, for every school that I have interviewed at and she has interviewed/been accepted at, I wrote them a letter just explaining the situation and how we both want to attend the same school together. I never stated "we will both come here if we are both accepted" rather I just said "we want to attend the same school." I hope that's ok....
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I feel like that’s just a letter of interest which is fine to send to multiple schools
 
XALT said:
I have a general question about letters of intent (LOI): I'm aware sending a LOI to multiple programs would be dishonest and don't plan to do this, but does sending a LOI necessarily hurt one's chances at programs other than the one to which one sends a LOI? Since admissions directors talk to each other and, as mentioned during my interview days, will often discuss applicants who have written letters of intent to determine if an applicant has sent a LOI to more than one program, I cannot help but think a LOI could do more harm than good. For example, if I sent a LOI to program X, and program Y found out, then program Y decides not to accept because they know I'd rather go to program X, and program X decides ultimately not to accept because they had a high yield this year, I'd have to kiss my chances of getting off either WL goodbye.

Can someone less neurotic weigh in?
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you have to be careful with this. I wrote "letters of interest" (and updates) to schools but I made it extremely clear that they were interests, not intent. I only wrote a letter of Intent to one school.
 
So I also have a neurotic LOI concern. I only wrote an LOI to one school, but did so prematurely as the last school I interviewed at (literally got the email a week before interviews would end, and with 4 days to get there) and ended up LOVING that school way more than I ever anticipated. Having already submitted an LOI, I just submitted a strong interest letter to this school but stupidly used the phrase "my top choice medical school" when I used that same phrase in my LOI.

I did specify it as an interest letter and didn't write that I would definitely attend if accepted (although I would), but do you guys think this phrasing is as colossal of a mistake as I do? I don't know if these schools even make the attempt to talk to other schools, but they are both Midwest schools and could? 😳
 
Hobbsyy said:
For me, I am in a semi-unique situation. My wife is trying to get into a Biochem PhD program and obviously we want to attend the same school. So, for every school that I have interviewed at and she has interviewed/been accepted at, I wrote them a letter just explaining the situation and how we both want to attend the same school together. I never stated "we will both come here if we are both accepted" rather I just said "we want to attend the same school." I hope that's ok....
Click to expand...

Ya that's more of a letter of interest. An intent letter basically states that you will go there no matter what
 
drkks1516 said:
So I also have a neurotic LOI concern. I only wrote an LOI to one school, but did so prematurely as the last school I interviewed at (literally got the email a week before interviews would end, and with 4 days to get there) and ended up LOVING that school way more than I ever anticipated. Having already submitted an LOI, I just submitted a strong interest letter to this school but stupidly used the phrase "my top choice medical school" when I used that same phrase in my LOI.

I did specify it as an interest letter and didn't write that I would definitely attend if accepted (although I would), but do you guys think this phrasing is as colossal of a mistake as I do? I don't know if these schools even make the attempt to talk to other schools, but they are both Midwest schools and could? 😳
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Nah, I think you should be okay. I wrote a LOI to my top choice school and a strong letter of interest to my second choice school (where I probably have no chance at all haha), and I used a similar phrase expressing that they were one of my top schools. So far, no one has came at me...perhaps they aren’t even read :shrug:
 
drkks1516 said:
So I also have a neurotic LOI concern. I only wrote an LOI to one school, but did so prematurely as the last school I interviewed at (literally got the email a week before interviews would end, and with 4 days to get there) and ended up LOVING that school way more than I ever anticipated. Having already submitted an LOI, I just submitted a strong interest letter to this school but stupidly used the phrase "my top choice medical school" when I used that same phrase in my LOI.

I did specify it as an interest letter and didn't write that I would definitely attend if accepted (although I would), but do you guys think this phrasing is as colossal of a mistake as I do? I don't know if these schools even make the attempt to talk to other schools, but they are both Midwest schools and could? 😳
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If you didn't write some variation of ' I will go here if accepted' then I don't think it's a real intent letter .You should be fine either way since these aren't binding
 
1 MD II ----> 1 waitlist..... at a school that interviews 1000 🙁

I'd rather a rejection and some piece of mind rather than clinging on to this shred of hope
 
golgi body said:
1 MD II ----> 1 waitlist..... at a school that interviews 1000 🙁

I'd rather a rejection and some piece of mind rather than clinging on to this shred of hope
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Wayne State?
 
So here's a hypothetical question: Say you're in love with two different schools that you're waitlisted at, would truly be stoked to attend either one, a complete coin toss. One of them has a ranked waitlist, the other doesn't. Would it make sense to write a letter of intent at the latter one since an LOI probably won't change your rank at the first one? Or would it potentially hurt your chances at the first one if the admins chat? Or is this whole thing a waste of effort because the LOI isn't going to do anything?
 
Squeaks said:
So here's a hypothetical question: Say you're in love with two different schools that you're waitlisted at, would truly be stoked to attend either one, a complete coin toss. One of them has a ranked waitlist, the other doesn't. Would it make sense to write a letter of intent at the latter one since an LOI probably won't change your rank at the first one? Or would it potentially hurt your chances at the first one if the admins chat? Or is this whole thing a waste of effort because the LOI isn't going to do anything?
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The general consensus from adcoms here is that LOI's really don't do much, so just breathe and get prepared for whatever next year may hold until you hear back.
 
Squeaks said:
So here's a hypothetical question: Say you're in love with two different schools that you're waitlisted at, would truly be stoked to attend either one, a complete coin toss. One of them has a ranked waitlist, the other doesn't. Would it make sense to write a letter of intent at the latter one since an LOI probably won't change your rank at the first one? Or would it potentially hurt your chances at the first one if the admins chat? Or is this whole thing a waste of effort because the LOI isn't going to do anything?
Click to expand...

Perhaps I’m the only one who appreciates this strategy. First, would you change your mind if you were accepted to both and one gave you a scholarship? While unlikely, it might not be impossible. Otherwise it really depends on the school, but I don’t think it would hurt unless they specifically stated they do not accept updates/ LOIs.


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DBC03 said:
Perhaps I’m the only one who appreciates this strategy. First, would you change your mind if you were accepted to both and one gave you a scholarship? While unlikely, it might not be impossible. Otherwise it really depends on the school, but I don’t think it would hurt unless they specifically stated they do not accept updates/ LOIs.


Sent from my iPad using SDN mobile
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This was my other hypothetical scenario. If you send an LOI to one school, get into that one and another, but the other gives you a hefty scholarship, are you looked down upon by not going with the one you sent the LOI to?
 
Squeaks said:
This was my other hypothetical scenario. If you send an LOI to one school, get into that one and another, but the other gives you a hefty scholarship, are you looked down upon by not going with the one you sent the LOI to?
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I would argue you're acting with best intentions with the initial LOI decision and the scholarship is what influences you more than the school itself as you said you'd be happy at both. I don't think a school would look negatively upon this if you get a large sum to attend somewhere else as long as they don't attempt to match it or it's the same COA etc

But then again I always see LOI are meaningless so who knows!
 
Squeaks said:
This was my other hypothetical scenario. If you send an LOI to one school, get into that one and another, but the other gives you a hefty scholarship, are you looked down upon by not going with the one you sent the LOI to?
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I would aim for a very strongly worded letter of interest in this case. I’m not into letters of intent, though. I think the one time you should be off the hook is if the LOI school takes you off the waitlist after you’ve already moved and are about to start at the other school - maybe they can technically take you off the waitlist then, but it’s unrealistic to expect you to attend at that point.

I’m in a related situation - I’m at a school I love with a substantial scholarship, but waitlisted at a really great school in a less desirable location. I would not attend the WL school unless I got a significant aid package, so I would write a letter of interest, but not a letter of intent.


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile
 
Hang in there everyone! As an MS1 and as someone who was waitlisted and went through the application cycle again, I just wanted to wish you all good luck hearing back the next few months and to remind you that nobody has the ability to tell you what you are or are not capable of other than yourself. If being a physician is something you are truly passionate about, do not give up on the pursuit because a school may not yet see it in you. Keep the faith and continue to push yourself and your dreams will come true soon enough
 
Also anyone with any questions/anxieties hit me up and hopefully I can help
 
BeerHelpsMeStudy said:
Hang in there everyone! As an MS1 and as someone who was waitlisted and went through the application cycle again, I just wanted to wish you all good luck hearing back the next few months and to remind you that nobody has the ability to tell you what you are or are not capable of other than yourself. If being a physician is something you are truly passionate about, do not give up on the pursuit because a school may not yet see it in you. Keep the faith and continue to push yourself and your dreams will come true soon enough
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When did you find out you were accepted? If you were already applying again it had to be past May/June
 
Can someone please explain to me what a “pre-matriculation program” is? Is it orientation? Or second look? I was reading through the earlier posts in this thread and I feel like I am completely missing something. I don’t want to break rules I don’t know about lol
 
NeuroSoph75 said:
Can someone please explain to me what a “pre-matriculation program” is? Is it orientation? Or second look? I was reading through the earlier posts in this thread and I feel like I am completely missing something. I don’t want to break rules I don’t know about lol
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It might be school dependent but I think of it as neither. It gives you an early exposure to the curriculum, while getting a chance to get accustomed to the city, friends, mentorship/faculty, etc. And if you attend the program, it is binding to that school.
 
catmullclark said:
Honest question - if these waitlists are all within the T20/25, then would you still eat a hat?
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I would eat a singular hat, probably not an all-you-can-eat buffet of hats as I would for someone with six waitlists from mid-tier schools.
 
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