What is the verdict on "safeties"?

[unfrozencaveman]

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Realizing nothing is a given, or even predictable in this process- how do people assess their safeties, and most importantly, how many safeties is, well, safe?

 

[Law2Doc]

Realizing nothing is a given, or even predictable in this process- how do people assess their safeties, and most importantly, how many safeties is, well, safe?

Whether something or anything is a "safety" is going to totally depend on an applicants credentials. Thus it is unfortunately going to be impossible for you to get any sort of answer you can use from anyone else, I suspect.

 

[unfrozencaveman]

Obviously the specific schools vary from person to person. But, how many schools are people generally applying to where they are the middle of the road or above average applicant? I mean I could apply to 15 of these schools or 5, and I don't particularly want to go to any of them, but I don't want to be sitting around for another year either.

 

[DrBowtie]

I have heard use a 1:2:2 ratio.
For every one reach, do 2 where you are in range, 2 above range.

 

[myodana]

repeat after me... "there are no safeties!" 🙂 (unless you're a 4.0 gpa, 42 mcat, olympic gold medalist, peace corps volunteer, with 10,000,000 hours of volunteer work, speak 15 languages and can touch your tongue to your nose. then maybe you can consider safeties 🙂

 

[it.]

repeat after me... "there are no safeties!" 🙂 (unless you're a 4.0 gpa, 42 mcat, olympic gold medalist, peace corps volunteer, with 10,000,000 hours of volunteer work, speak 15 languages and can touch your tongue to your nose. then maybe you can consider safeties 🙂

😱 u got me pegged...

 

[LUBDUBB]

repeat after me... "there are no safeties!" 🙂 (unless you're a 4.0 gpa, 42 mcat, olympic gold medalist, peace corps volunteer, with 10,000,000 hours of volunteer work, speak 15 languages and can touch your tongue to your nose. then maybe you can consider safeties 🙂

agreed!

 

[unfrozencaveman]

I know. I knowwwwwwww........ I put "safety" in quotes twice, and then qualified it further in the original post. Give me a break, you know what I am asking here...

Don't make me come over there with my olympic gold medal and my peace corps friends.

 

[myodana]

honestly, i don't know what you're asking. it's f***ing hard to get into med school... have a look on mdapplicants.com and see what you can figure out about your chances at certain schools compared to those with similar stats. apply to your state schools. if you can afford it, apply to a lot of schools. there's no formula, really.

 

[Medinsane]

the carribean?

 

[Economist]

The problem is that even if you have good stats, there's no guarantee that you'll get into schools where you're above the averages. That's what happened with me. I got rejected from a number of schools where my stats were way above the averages. So while it made me laugh because I got into a bunch of good schools, it might not have been so funny if I hadn't gotten in anywhere.

It makes sense when you think about it, though. Why would a school where you're way above their average stats bother wasting their time on you? They figure, "Oh, this person will get into a higher-tier school and won't come here, so we won't bother." I think that's why there's no such thing as a "safety."

 

[16hoursleeper]

Okay, well, I'm going to disagree with some folks on this thread. Sometimes a school can be a relative safety without having a 40+ MCAT. Look at your state schools. If you have multiple state schools, look at the lower school(s). No, you aren't a schoo-in. You have to make just as strong an effort as you would at any school and you have to come prepared to the interview. BUT, I think if your stats are 30% or more better than their average (ie. their average MCAT is 25 and you have a 33 with a similar GPA), come from a good school with strong reqs, spend time on the essays, I don't think you need to spaz. I've seen some intimidating MDapplicants profiles, but I think the key is that you need to apply to a range of places, including all your state schools, no matter how qualified you think you are. I would suggest applying to at least 5 schools which you are above average at and would actually attend.

 

[shiraz84]

Okay, well, I'm going to disagree with some folks on this thread. Sometimes a school can be a relative safety without having a 40+ MCAT. Look at your state schools. If you have multiple state schools, look at the lower school(s). No, you aren't a schoo-in. You have to make just as strong an effort as you would at any school and you have to come prepared to the interview. BUT, I think if your stats are 30% or more better than their average (ie. their average MCAT is 25 and you have a 33 with a similar GPA), come from a good school with strong reqs, spend time on the essays, I don't think you need to spaz. I've seen some intimidating MDapplicants profiles, but I think the key is that you need to apply to a range of places, including all your state schools, no matter how qualified you think you are. I would suggest applying to at least 5 schools which you are above average at and would actually attend.

I agree. As someone in another thread said (I'm sorry that I can't remember who you are), it's not the number of schools you apply to, it's the variety.

 

[wetlightning]

yea, give the guy a break. he put "safeties" in quotes specifically knowing he'd get flamed by almost everyone. the point is that some schools are easier to get in than others..i'm sure he was just asking for a recommended list of that. we all know med school is hard to get into. period. but implying that it's equally hard to get into a ros franklin and a uchi is ridiculous.

that said, i would also like to point out something... i've heard a lot about people making up mdapplicants profiles. plus the fact that mainly the higher scoring/higher gpa people tend to post, so those numbers/credentials are not necessarily representative of the general pool anyway.

i definitely agree with 16hoursleeper.

to the OP: i believe usnews has a list of schools from easiest to hardest to get into. was posted elsewhere on this forum some time ago...you might run a search for that!

g'luck

 

[Law2Doc]

repeat after me... "there are no safeties!" 🙂 (unless you're a 4.0 gpa, 42 mcat, olympic gold medalist, peace corps volunteer, with 10,000,000 hours of volunteer work, speak 15 languages and can touch your tongue to your nose. then maybe you can consider safeties 🙂

I had the tongue thing going for me, but the interviewers weren't all that impressed. 🙄

 

[liverotcod]

You could try the numeric approach. Research a likelihood of acceptance at each school you're interested in. USNews is useful for this. Then take its complement (the chance of non-acceptance) and multiply these together to get a composite chance of non-acceptance. Keep adding schools until this figure is acceptably low.

Example:
School A: 5% acceptance, 95% non-acceptance
School B: 15% acceptance, 85% non-acceptance
School C: 10% acceptance, 90% non-acceptance
School D: 15% acceptance, 85% non-acceptance
School E: 20% acceptance, 80% non-acceptance
School F: 15% acceptance, 85% non-acceptance
School G: 20% acceptance, 80% non-acceptance

In this example, if we take (.95 * .85 * .90 * .85 * .80 * .85 * .80) we get a 33.6% chance of non-acceptance. Probably that's still too high for your personal conception of "safe," so keep adding schools. "Safety" schools might have a larger chance of acceptance, but no school is going to be much over 20%.

Short answer: apply to a lot of schools. It's better to be turning down interview offers than hoping for a single acceptance from waitlist. Nothing correlates better to your chance at acceptance than the number of schools applied to.

 

[liverotcod]

I had the tongue thing going for me, but the interviewers weren't all that impressed. 🙄

Perhaps they were the wrong gender?

 

[unfrozencaveman]

Great. Thanks for all the info- I was basically just wondering how you look at a school and think "I have a good shot there", when no one seems to have a good shot anywhere. I mean, the entire underlying theme of the question is it's really hard to get into med school. You know, don't hate the player, hate the game, or whatever it is the kids are saying these days.
But seriously, thanks for the actual help.

 

[liverotcod]

As for assessing your chances at a particular school, look at its profile on USNews. It will give you a percent acceptance in-state and out-of-state. Then compare your GPA and MCAT to the average GPA and MCAT of matriculants to that school, and adjust the initial percent acceptance number accordingly. I don't have a formula for that, but your guesstimate is as good as anyone's.

Of course, there's more to it than the numbers. And even in the numbers, trends in grades are extremely important. But that gives you a starting point.

 

[Loco Loki]

Why is it that St. Georges Uni always looms above these forums? It's like the reaper waiting to collect the next batch of fresh souls.

 

[Law2Doc]

Why is it that St. Georges Uni always looms above these forums? It's like the reaper waiting to collect the next batch of fresh souls.

What makes you think all of us are seeing the same ads? 🙂