What's the main reason med schools reject applicants?

[wr9152]

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What's the main reason med schools reject applicants? I was looking at QUs med school and they listed their stats for the upcoming year.
Around 1900 applicants
419 interviewed
And only 60 seats!!
I know there are prob even more dramatic numbers out there. But why did 1500 get rejected off the bat?

 

[Doctor Strange]

Stats.

 

[chillaxbro]

Stats
Extracurriculars
LORs
Interviews

ie your application

 

[alpharez]

you're cookie-cutter

 

[Planes2Doc]

Interesting question...

I think when it comes down to ECs, ADCOMs need to take a step back and see what's going on. If the medical schools have a goal of creating empathetic doctors that want to serve the poor, then the applicants with the most killer/beefy/any other SDN-derived adjective for ECs will have a paradoxical effect.

Therefore, the applicant I call "ZERO to Mother Teresa" who goes from never gaving volunteered to suddenly looking like the next Mother Teresa once they are pre-med will likely not give medical schools what they want. In my opinion, the students with the laundry-list of ECs, high 30s MCAT, research, and 3.5+ GPA will wow the ADCOMs from top institutions and get admitted. But instead of fulfilling their promise of helping the underserved and all that stuff, they will gun for ROADS residencies and become our future dermatologists, radiologists, orthopods, and other specialties.

As you can see, the MCAT was redone so that we can have "better" medical students that will make more empathetic physicians. Maybe ADCOMs should instead take a step back and see why they are rejecting certain applicants. If we were to treat pre-meds as human beings instead of holier-than-thou God-like beings, we might have more desirable physicians.

The question is so simple, but it's quite complicated when you go beneath the surface.

 

[Mr Avante]

I quote this from an adcom:

adcom= "[Insert my name here], you would not believe the number of applicants that never send their test scores and never take the requirement courses."
Me: "<controlled laugh> Impressive. I like your school very much by the way!."

😎

 

[Irish Football]

There are just way too many qualified applicants. You need to really stand out nowadays.

 

[Mt Kilimanjaro]

I quote this from an adcom:

adcom= "[Insert my name here], you would not believe the number of applicants that never send their test scores and never take the requirement courses."
Me: "<controlled laugh> Impressive. I like your school very much by the way!."

😎

How does the first part make sense? MCAT scores are sent automatically.

The second part...maybe, but I doubt that's a large percentage of the pool,

 

[Mt Kilimanjaro]

Interesting question...

I think when it comes down to ECs, ADCOMs need to take a step back and see what's going on. If the medical schools have a goal of creating empathetic doctors that want to serve the poor, then the applicants with the most killer/beefy/any other SDN-derived adjective for ECs will have a paradoxical effect.

Therefore, the applicant I call "ZERO to Mother Teresa" who goes from never gaving volunteered to suddenly looking like the next Mother Teresa once they are pre-med will likely not give medical schools what they want. In my opinion, the students with the laundry-list of ECs, high 30s MCAT, research, and 3.5+ GPA will wow the ADCOMs from top institutions and get admitted. But instead of fulfilling their promise of helping the underserved and all that stuff, they will gun for ROADS residencies and become our future dermatologists, radiologists, orthopods, and other specialties.

As you can see, the MCAT was redone so that we can have "better" medical students that will make more empathetic physicians. Maybe ADCOMs should instead take a step back and see why they are rejecting certain applicants. If we were to treat pre-meds as human beings instead of holier-than-thou God-like beings, we might have more desirable physicians.

The question is so simple, but it's quite complicated when you go beneath the surface.

The longer the checklist the easier it is to disqualify otherwise acceptable applicants. ADCOMs know that anyone with roughly a 3.5 /27 is very, very likely to complete the training and become a physician. But there's way too many of those, so the checklist grows to include research, volunteering, shadowing, etc. If anyone has any peer-reviewed data showing that any of these things actually makes a difference with regards to a) clinical competence or b) medical training completion rate, please provide the links.

The interview is among the most heavily weighted part of the entire process, despite an apparent lack of data that it predicts anything about an applicant whatsoever.

For these reasons, I completely support a weighted lottery system. Set the GPA/MCAT cutoffs at a level that research shows will result in statistically acceptable completion rates, give some extra points to Super Applicants for verifiable things like publications and awards, allow applicants to rank geographical preferences, and let probability select a diverse, academically successful medical school class.

 

[LizzyM]

There are only so many hours in the days and only so many rooms in the building and only so many faculty members to fill them.

I don't know of any school that has the time and resources to interview any more than 1,000 applicants (some interview far fewer) and yet almost every school has more than 5,000 applicants. Therefore, many people who are very qualified just can't be invited to interview. We pick people with good stats who seem to have an interest in what our school offers (top research school), who have some demonstrated commitment to community service, and who have tested their interest in medicine through shadowing and/or employment and/or volunteering and who have a realistic view of what a career in medicine will require of them.

As a side note, with so many good applicants and so few slots, would you rather the cuts be made before you take a day off and travel to the school for an interview or would you prefer a school that interviews loads of applicants but rejects most of them?

 

[ToldYouSo]

I wouldn't be surprised if a large amount of apps get thrown out right away because of:

1) atrocious mcat scores (~15%)
2) bad gpa (~10%)
3) administrative problems (missing pre-reqs, error-ridden/non-updated amcas) (~5%)
4) no clinical/volunteer/shadowing ec's whatsoever (~5%)
5) people who applied to schools that only accept mostly instate (~5%)


etc...

 

[OCDOCDOCD]

Interesting question...

I think when it comes down to ECs, ADCOMs need to take a step back and see what's going on. If the medical schools have a goal of creating empathetic doctors that want to serve the poor, then the applicants with the most killer/beefy/any other SDN-derived adjective for ECs will have a paradoxical effect.

Therefore, the applicant I call "ZERO to Mother Teresa" who goes from never gaving volunteered to suddenly looking like the next Mother Teresa once they are pre-med will likely not give medical schools what they want. In my opinion, the students with the laundry-list of ECs, high 30s MCAT, research, and 3.5+ GPA will wow the ADCOMs from top institutions and get admitted. But instead of fulfilling their promise of helping the underserved and all that stuff, they will gun for ROADS residencies and become our future dermatologists, radiologists, orthopods, and other specialties.

As you can see, the MCAT was redone so that we can have "better" medical students that will make more empathetic physicians. Maybe ADCOMs should instead take a step back and see why they are rejecting certain applicants. If we were to treat pre-meds as human beings instead of holier-than-thou God-like beings, we might have more desirable physicians.

The question is so simple, but it's quite complicated when you go beneath the surface.

Don't top schools usually want their students to go into academic medicine though? I don't see them being too disappointed that their students don't go on to hang primary care shingles in rural areas. Also, I'm willing to bet that students with less impressive applications are just as likely to specialize if given the chance. Very few people are willing to go into primary care when staring down $250,000 of debt.

 

[Planes2Doc]

Don't top schools usually want their students to go into academic medicine though? I don't see them being too disappointed that their students don't go on to hang primary care shingles in rural areas. Also, I'm willing to bet that students with less impressive applications are just as likely to specialize if given the chance. Very few people are willing to go into primary care when staring down $250,000 of debt.

Yeah I agree with you here. I don't know what's going on in the heads of ADCOMs. Perhaps they would rather have their graduates go into academic medicine versus some poor underserved community. I don't know, I'm not a psychic.

But there is one thing I do know... Way too many applicants are taking part in a huge dog and pony show that masks their true intentions. And that's where there is a disconnect between reality and fantasy.

 

[Katzmandoo]

I wouldn't be surprised if a large amount of apps get thrown out right away because of:

1) atrocious mcat scores (~15%)
2) bad gpa (~10%)
3) administrative problems (missing pre-reqs, error-ridden/non-updated amcas) (~5%)
4) no clinical/volunteer/shadowing ec's whatsoever (~5%)
5) people who applied to schools that only accept mostly instate (~5%)


etc...

lol, where are you getting these percentages?

 

[Katzmandoo]

Ok guys, the reason people are rejected is there are far too many qualified applicants. Some of the best students at my school were rejected twice.

The truth is that adcoms are fickle and each one is different. You can't really listen to any because one will tell you to change something that another one says is what got you in.

My advice is to do what everyone probably still says. Get your MCAT/GPA up, get a decent amount of volunteer hrs (used to be 100 or 200?), if you like research do some, shadow physicians, etc. They want to know you've been around medicine and that you can work hard.

To be really honest, the MCAT and keeping your GPA high are rather simplistic compared to doing well on Step 1 and in medical school. So the applications is a bit of a weed out process. And the political games you play to get good letters, volunteering, etc - they are all simple compared to the more complicated politics of 3rd year rotations.

Keep fighting and doing well. Don't read too much in to any adcom because there is nothing consistent about what they tell you - it's a subjective process. Just focus on making your core app good and then don't be boring - have something interesting about yourself.

 

[gravitywave]

#1 cause: Bad narrative. Everything you put into AMCAS should relate in some way to the story of how you came to be filling AMCAS out. Tell a compelling story with words (essays) and actions (everything else) and suddenly numbers matter far less. Then you go to the interview and demonstrate that, yes, what was in the narrative the app reader saw is in fact true - you get it. You're the whole package.

This is why some 3.7/34s don't make it and some 3.4/27s do.

 

[NewYorker9]

There are only so many hours in the days and only so many rooms in the building and only so many faculty members to fill them.

I don't know of any school that has the time and resources to interview any more than 1,000 applicants (some interview far fewer) and yet almost every school has more than 5,000 applicants. Therefore, many people who are very qualified just can't be invited to interview. We pick people with good stats who seem to have an interest in what our school offers (top research school), who have some demonstrated commitment to community service, and who have tested their interest in medicine through shadowing and/or employment and/or volunteering and who have a realistic view of what a career in medicine will require of them.

As a side note, with so many good applicants and so few slots, would you rather the cuts be made before you take a day off and travel to the school for an interview or would you prefer a school that interviews loads of applicants but rejects most of them?

I think this is a great point

 

[OCDOCDOCD]

Yeah I agree with you here. I don't know what's going on in the heads of ADCOMs. Perhaps they would rather have their graduates go into academic medicine versus some poor underserved community. I don't know, I'm not a psychic.

But there is one thing I do know... Way too many applicants are taking part in a huge dog and pony show that masks their true intentions. And that's where there is a disconnect between reality and fantasy.

You don't have to be a psychic, just read the mission statements and websites. Most schools state pretty clearly what their intentions for the students they admit are. Some schools say they're training doctors who will go into a poor underserved community, others say they're training the "tomorrow's leaders in medicine" (ie academics, chief physicians).

I absolutely agree with you about the dog and pony show though. I really have to wonder if anyone in this process genuinely believes anything any party says anymore. Both applicants and schools have their own set of go-to buzzwords, phrases, and key points that they know they have to include because its expected, and everyone knows what they are, and yet both applicants and schools still demand to see all those things from each other nonetheless.

 

[SunsFun]

Do you guys think the mission statements schools have are actually representative of what they look for in applicants?

 

[Mr Avante]

Do you guys think the mission statements schools have are actually representative of what they look for in applicants?

To me, the personal statement is like an invitation for them to get to know you and match you to their views and values. I think they use the interview to confirm what the statement is about. Otherwise, I see no other point in both processes.

 

[VictorAlpha]

There are only so many hours in the days and only so many rooms in the building and only so many faculty members to fill them.

I don't know of any school that has the time and resources to interview any more than 1,000 applicants (some interview far fewer) and yet almost every school has more than 5,000 applicants. Therefore, many people who are very qualified just can't be invited to interview. We pick people with good stats who seem to have an interest in what our school offers (top research school), who have some demonstrated commitment to community service, and who have tested their interest in medicine through shadowing and/or employment and/or volunteering and who have a realistic view of what a career in medicine will require of them.

As a side note, with so many good applicants and so few slots, would you rather the cuts be made before you take a day off and travel to the school for an interview or would you prefer a school that interviews loads of applicants but rejects most of them?

should be before the secondary...schools get plenty of info from the primary. Use it as a cutoff.

 

[PanRoasted]

Yeah I agree with you here. I don't know what's going on in the heads of ADCOMs. Perhaps they would rather have their graduates go into academic medicine versus some poor underserved community. I don't know, I'm not a psychic.

But there is one thing I do know... Way too many applicants are taking part in a huge dog and pony show that masks their true intentions. And that's where there is a disconnect between reality and fantasy.

Care to flesh out this thought a little further? What exactly is the disconnect?

 

[AxiomaticTruth]

Care to flesh out this thought a little further? What exactly is the disconnect?

Being honest, some of the huuuuuuge attractions to the medical profession is job security (especially in this post-recession economy) and job pay (how many other jobs guarantee 100k+ salary? Not even law school!). Yet if adcoms think that is the major reason why you are applying, then they will kick your butt to the curb asap, as they SHOULD. Problem is, these two reasons are significant factors for most applicants, even those with completely altruistic intentions. But we have to hide those two big factors in case adcoms mistakenly think that they are our main reasons.

 

[StephanieZ]

Around 1900 applicants
419 interviewed
And only 60 seats!!
I know there are prob even more dramatic numbers out there. But why did 1500 get rejected off the bat?

1500 got rejected off the bat because there are 1900 applicants for 60 seats.

I'm thoroughly convinced that there are so many qualified applicants and so few seats that in the end it must just come down to things like "Let's just go through the stack and reject every third application."

 

[VictorAlpha]

1500 got rejected off the bat because there are 1900 applicants for 60 seats.

I'm thoroughly convinced that there are so many qualified applicants and so few seats that in the end it must just come down to things like "Let's just go through the stack and reject every third application."

To some degree I agree with this. I mean maybe it's not that extreme or whatever but at some point it is probably like splitting hairs. In the grand scheme for the nations medical school class, this person for that person or that other person really won't make any difference; everyone who is still in contention at that point is basically equal and more than capable.

Anyone, no matter what the stats are, who gets accepted is lucky.

 

[dahassa]

What's the main reason med schools reject applicants? I was looking at QUs med school and they listed their stats for the upcoming year.
Around 1900 applicants
419 interviewed
And only 60 seats!!
I know there are prob even more dramatic numbers out there. But why did 1500 get rejected off the bat?

For the majority, it is probably Stats..either MCAT or GPA was off. Also, applying as OOS to a school that mainly takes IS.
For a fewer percentage, something was off in the PS or something was missing (no EC, no clinical exposure, no volunteer work, ect)

 

[StephanieZ]

Anyone, no matter what the stats are, who gets accepted is lucky.

👍 this

 

[LizzyM]

should be before the secondary...schools get plenty of info from the primary. Use it as a cutoff.

I've seen it both ways; more than a decade ago, my school pre-screened. But a hard cut point can mean missing out on talented applicants with "interesting" stories. We sent a secondary to a guy who appealed the decision not to give him a secondary. Someone with connections made a call when he didn't get an interview. He wow'ed up on interview and ended up admitted. Four years later, he walked out the door as one of the top 10% of the class.

I've never heard it discussed but I don't doubt that the secondary fee is a motivator for some schools, too. The cost of the hardware & software neede to handle the files, the cost of publicizing the school to strong applicants, the cost of interview day and second look makes it attractive to try to attract as many applicants as possible.

Don't be a fool; self screen with the LizzyM score or some other way of determing which schools are a good fit.

 

[274631]

Care to flesh out this thought a little further? What exactly is the disconnect?

My interpretation of this is that there are a lot of premeds who do volunteering and clinical work and research just to be able to tick a box to get into medical school. So the picture they put forth is not necessarily a true representation of themselves. And med schools accept based on that picture so there is a disconnect between the premed they accepted and the doctor they churn out after 4 years.
e.g. guy who volunteers for four years in a PC clinic serving immigrants during undergrad. School accepts him expecting him to go into primary care or to serve the underserved and he goes on to a ROAD specialty in a posh urban area.

 

[AxiomaticTruth]

I've seen it both ways; more than a decade ago, my school pre-screened. But a hard cut point can mean missing out on talented applicants with "interesting" stories. We sent a secondary to a guy who appealed the decision not to give him a secondary. Someone with connections made a call when he didn't get an interview. He wow'ed up on interview and ended up admitted. Four years later, he walked out the door as one of the top 10% of the class.

I've never heard it discussed but I don't doubt that the secondary fee is a motivator for some schools, too. The cost of the hardware & software neede to handle the files, the cost of publicizing the school to strong applicants, the cost of interview day and second look makes it attractive to try to attract as many applicants as possible.

Don't be a fool; self screen with the LizzyM score or some other way of determing which schools are a good fit.

Hello Lizzy! Just curious if you have the time, what exactly about the person had the WOW factor? Was it his interviewing skills, his non-academic experiences, maturity, etc? Did he come off as absolutely sure with himself? I'm just trying to hone in on my interviewing skills so any little bit would help!

 

[LizzyM]

Hello Lizzy! Just curious if you have the time, what exactly about the person had the WOW factor? Was it his interviewing skills, his non-academic experiences, maturity, etc? Did he come off as absolutely sure with himself? I'm just trying to hone in on my interviewing skills so any little bit would help!

I didn't interview him so I can't say for sure (and it was >10 yrs ago) but I suspect that he was self-assured, well-spoken, well mannered, humble, genuine, sincere in his interest in the school. That's how he came across to me in the years after his admission.