who pulls the trigger?

[etf]

on interview invites, that is? what i mean is basically who is the first person to look at your application and who decides if you get an interview? is it a single person, a committee, current med students?

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[braluk]

hmm good question! Im not sure myself at all, but if I had to conjecture, Id figure that the piles are distributed amongst the adcom members, and then they meet to discuss applications and either vote yay or nay to them.

 

[MirrorTodd]

Jack Bauer does. Chuck Norris would, but instead he can roundhouse kick bullets into existence. I don't know the answer OP. At least it's a person and not some computer algorithm.

 

[somemaybedoc]

I've heard that the methodology is varies between schools, but the four I've heard of are subcommittee review, full committee review, individual review, and numeric cutoffs (usually if you don't make a numeric cutoff you still get reviewed some other way, if this is being used).

 

[NN11]

etf, this is a very good question and I'd like to know the answer too. Although, you may have a better chance of getting a reasonable answer in the Adcom sticky above. On the other hand, starting your own thread will give your question more visibility. so it's a toss up.

 

[gary5]

I expect that it's a combination of single person and small group. A single person probably looks first, eliminates some by numeric cutoff, then reads the rest. Then maybe they choose some that are more impressive and give those to a small group to decide which to interview.

 

[lovexn]

It varies, for some schools, cutoffs, then subcommittee reviews. Others, cutoffs, reviews by the director(s) or dean who decides.

 

[Law2Doc]

It varies, for some schools, cutoffs, then subcommittee reviews. Others, cutoffs, reviews by the director(s) or dean who decides.

Agree. There are multiple methodologies. A number of schools I believe have an initial cutoff screen, then divide up the remaining apps between committee members to cull out the ones worth looking at further, then meet to decide who to interview as a committee.

 

[somemaybedoc]

I think UTSW has a numeric cutoff where you skip any further review before you get an interview, a number of us were offered interviews less than 24 hours after they got our primaries and before they got our secondaries.

 

[gujuDoc]

on interview invites, that is? what i mean is basically who is the first person to look at your application and who decides if you get an interview? is it a single person, a committee, current med students?

I would think that depends on schools. I recall going to a few premed forums where Dr. Hinkley of Miami described sort of what they do to decide who gets an interview.

What he said is that they use this ranking system in which they assign a set amount of points for MCAT + GPA, a set amt of pts for direct patient contact, a set amt of pts for other ECs, a set amt of pts for LORs and a set amt of pts for any signficant adversity you may have had to overcome.

At any rate there are 3 people who assign how many pts out of the total possible for each of those categories. Then based on the number of pts it determines how high you are ranked. The rankings are given to everyone who is given a secondary. At any rate, based on the rankings I believe they decide who gets an interview.

At other schools I don't know how it is. LizzyM and REL can shed light at how it is done at their respective schools.

If you guys see this post then please feel free to respond.

 

[LizzyM]

First pass: some applicants excluded from further review by very liberal MCAT and gpa screen (~<20, <2.5)

First reader: reads every word of AMCAS, supplemental and LORs. Recommends interview for ~50% (my school has 30+ first readers: faculty and some M4 students)

Second reader: reads first readers comments, skims application selectively, endorses or overrules first reader. Recommends for interview about 25-35% of all applicants (6 faculty members)

Third review (dean's office): reviews comments of first 2 reviewers and issues invitations to about 10-20% of applicants. Can overrule first 2 reviewers.

 

[Critical Mass]

I'm sure that there is a pretty big difference between a school that gets nearly 10K apps (like Boston or Drexel) and one that only takes in-state students (AZ, UF, Ole Miss?).

In cases where the application number is way up there, some kind of numerical rank must first be assigned before they get to the interview stage.

If you press them, some schools will actually tell you how they numerically score your application. My school was actually pretty simple--line 'em up by MCAT and interview one by one until the class is full. 32+ almost guaranteed acceptance for in-staters.

Usually in-state and oos piles have to be sorted independently at state schools to meet legal requirements.

 

[etf]

First pass: some applicants excluded from further review by very liberal MCAT and gpa screen (~<20, <2.5)

First reader: reads every word of AMCAS, supplemental and LORs. Recommends interview for ~50% (my school has 30+ first readers: faculty and some M4 students)

Second reader: reads first readers comments, skims application selectively, endorses or overrules first reader. Recommends for interview about 25-35% of all applicants (6 faculty members)

Third review (dean's office): reviews comments of first 2 reviewers and issues invitations to about 10-20% of applicants. Can overrule first 2 reviewers.

this seems the most likely way it gets done, albeit with variations among schools. i.e. for ucsf, the computer uses a very liberal initial screen (mcat<35, gpa<3.8). anyway, part of why i was asking was because i was wondering if as a reapp i could use the same amcas ps, and how likely it would be for me to get interview invites to schools that interviewed and subsequently waitlisted me last year. what do you guys (and gals) think?

 

[gujuDoc]

this seems the most likely way it gets done, albeit with variations among schools. i.e. for ucsf, the computer uses a very liberal initial screen (mcat<35, gpa<3.8). anyway, part of why i was asking was because i was wondering if as a reapp i could use the same amcas ps, and how likely it would be for me to get interview invites to schools that interviewed and subsequently waitlisted me last year. what do you guys (and gals) think?

It is not advised that you use the same PS. You could use part of it but you'd want to at least have a line or two to say what you've done to improve your application since the first time around when you reapply.

 

[etf]

It is not advised that you use the same PS. You could use part of it but you'd want to at least have a line or two to say what you've done to improve your application since the first time around when you reapply.

really? should you address the fact that you are a reapplicant in your amcas ps? from what i remember, some schools have secondary q's specifically asking if you are a reapplicant and what you've done since then? also, wouldn't they be able to see what you've done from your experiences list? i really don't want to put that i'm a reapp on my personal statement - i'm telling a story, and having to reapply doesn't seem to have affected my desire to become a physician, which is what i thought a ps was supposed to talk about.

 

[LizzyM]

this seems the most likely way it gets done, albeit with variations among schools. i.e. for ucsf, the computer uses a very liberal initial screen (mcat<35, gpa<3.8). anyway, part of why i was asking was because i was wondering if as a reapp i could use the same amcas ps, and how likely it would be for me to get interview invites to schools that interviewed and subsequently waitlisted me last year. what do you guys (and gals) think?

Are you serious? Anyone with MCAT < 35 or gpa <3.8 gets an automatic exclusion? And you think this is a liberal (meaning generous) policy??

 

[UCLAMAN]

Are you serious? Anyone with MCAT < 35 or gpa <3.8 gets an automatic exclusion? And you think this is a liberal (meaning generous) policy??

he is kidding.

 

[UCLAMAN]

really? should you address the fact that you are a reapplicant in your amcas ps? from what i remember, some schools have secondary q's specifically asking if you are a reapplicant and what you've done since then? also, wouldn't they be able to see what you've done from your experiences list? i really don't want to put that i'm a reapp on my personal statement - i'm telling a story, and having to reapply doesn't seem to have affected my desire to become a physician, which is what i thought a ps was supposed to talk about.

i was a reapplicant. i highlighted the fact that I was indeed a reapplicant. i also pointed out what i improved on my resume. having to reapply has the ptotential to show that your desire is perhaps greater than others, since you have failed, yet have taken strides to improve yourself and try again.

and yes...it worked...i went from 2 interviews/zero accepts the first cycle to 13 interviews/several acceptances and the rest waitlisted. interviews from stanford to northwestern to pitt to einstein. being a reapplicant is not the problem...its reapplying without making any changes or improvements to your resume that will kill you a second time.

so make changes!

 

[etf]

he is kidding.

i'm pretty sure LizzyM knows that, although for some of us applicants, it doesn't seem so funny...

 

[Darksmurf]

It is not advised that you use the same PS. You could use part of it but you'd want to at least have a line or two to say what you've done to improve your application since the first time around when you reapply.

I reapplied using the same PS verbatim and one school that I interviewed at he year before interviewed and accepted me, and one didn't interview me.

So there is really no magic method and there are neverending application nuances that make one person more likely to succed than others. For some, that means redoing everything and highlighting that, for others, that means picking different schools. And for some, it's just about applying earlier.

 

[adcomm]

my school uses screening cutoffs, then the dean of admissions and the admissions director screen the applications for a variety of things and decide interview or no interview.