WARS was really helpful to me when creating a school list, so I figured I'd come back to report on how it worked out now that it seems there won't be many more II's sent out.
My WARS score is 80-82 A, probably closer to 80. After feedback from Wedgie himself, I cut down my Category 1 list to 5 schools and added a few more Category 4 schools.
Here were my II and rejection/silence results. Blue = II, Red = rejection/silence
Category 1
Columbia
UCSF
Harvard
Stanford
Duke
Category 2
UCLA
NYU
Emory
Pitt
UCSD
Cornell
Northwestern
Mt. Sinai
Category 3
USC-Keck
Einstein
Hofstra
Rochester
Dartmouth
UVA
Ohio State
Category 4
SLU
Stony Brook
SUNY Downstate
Wake Forest
Category 5 (State Schools)
UC Davis
UC Irvine
Category 6 (Low-Yield)
Tufts
NYMC
I'm not sure what to make of the love from Category 1 and 3 schools but no love from Category 2. My impression is that the Category 1 schools liked my PS and LOR's and heavily factored them in, the Category 3 schools liked my stats, but the Category 2 schools didn't particularly like my stats (LM ~74) and placed less emphasis on the importance of essays/LOR's. Just a guess, it's obviously a small sample size so I won't try to draw too many conclusions.
I think it was a good call to remove the Category 1 schools that I did, since they seem more concerned with stats than many of the Category 1's I applied to, and it was apparently a good idea to add more Category 4 schools too given that I received II's from 3/4 of them.
I only applied to Tufts as a throwaway school in order to get my primary verified while I was coming up with a school list and taking the MCAT, but I shouldn't have applied to NYMC, I don't think I realized it was low-yield at the time.
Overall, I think this is a fantastic tool and a great starting point for creating school lists. Of course it should always be supplemented by WAMC though, just in case. And given that it's impossible to factor essays/background/LORs/etc. into this system, applicants should feel comfortable skewing their list upwards if they know they're strong in those unquantifiable aspects and downwards if they feel that those areas are weak points in their application.
I still have 2 pieces of constructive criticism:
1) It's possible to go from a Level A --> Level C applicant (and vice versa) with a 1-point change in MCAT score.
That means someone with a 515 MCAT could have this result:
Category 1 - 30%
Category 2 - 30%
Category 3 - 25%
Category 4/5- 15%
Category 6/7 - Do Not Apply
whereas someone with a 514 MCAT would have this result:
Category 1 - 5%
Category 2 - 15%
Category 3 - 25%
Category 4/5- 55%
Category 6 - Consider Applying
Category 7 - Do Not Apply
Those lists would be drastically different, and they don't reflect the reality of a 1-point MCAT difference. A 1-point MCAT drop shouldn't decrease your number of Category 1 schools by 25% and increase your number of Category 4/5 schools by 40%. Such drastically different school lists wouldn't really be prepared for WAMC, which is best used for minor tweaks to solid school lists.
2) There are 2 instances in the stats section where a 3.71 is considered equivalent to a 4.0.
Both the MCAT problem and the GPA problem would be solved by introducing much smaller increments to the stats table, like having 12-15 separate MCAT ranges and ~10 separate GPA ranges instead of the current 7 of each.
Thanks for the great work @WedgeDawg