Medwannabe123
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As a current applicant, I'm in favor of a med school match. The process should be modelled off the NRMP (I think @senecca proposal is too complicated and gameable). Students would submit their AMCAS and secondaries by Labor Day (as is currently advised) and do interviews August-January. Applicants and schools would make match lists. Match Day would be in March and there could be a SOAP for unmatched slots.
Rebuttals to common criticisms:
Diversity - Don't see why a match should prevent a school from building a diverse class. Schools could also choose who to interview and rank based on their mission statements.
Financial aid - I think financial aid is the hardest issue to resolve. My solution is for price transparency instead of very high sticker price with varying levels of financial aid. The current system of financial aid / scholarships doesn't seem consistent or fair. Fin aid shouldn't be based on applicants with many A's playing schools against each other while students with 1 A settle for negligible aid. Schools should compete for the lowest sticker price (like NYU and Kaiser) to get higher on an applicant's rank list. Around 70% of med students are taking out loans so I would argue that lower sticker price is better than a system where some get full rides and some pay full price.
Applicant choice- @cj_cregg Applicants under a match system would be able to rank schools based on their preference. Keep in mind that a large majority of applicants get into 0-2 schools. Applicants would no longer be able to brag about having a ton of A's but could at least brag about a ton of IIs.
The real advantage of a med school match is all applicant will know if they got into med school and where they're going by mid-March. Students who formerly got fall A's would be worse off. However, no one would be stuck on the waitlist through June and rejected applicants could start their re-application earlier. Adcoms wouldn't be worrying about their yields and could go on vacation April-July.
Thanks. This was the original thread and thanks for bringing us back. My vote is the same.
I think even financial aid can be a part of the match. Schools say what they offer. Students say what they want in the app.
There is too much engrained feelings about service attitude, mission fit etc etc. which an algo will not be able to.
Residency match has the same fit asks, but seems to work fine. Issue is residency match helps the institutions to find cheap labor so they like it.
Then I also respectfully read the input that one should have their own mission and not try to map to schools mission.
All very good, but believe me 100% of the students have one mission = A. They do not care about the schools mission. Anyone will do, specially those who fund them. So please.