Who will overadmit this year?

[Lshapley]

Last year I know Drexel did and gave at least one student a sweat deal to defer a year. With a record number of applicants and over 120 schools (most of which dole out more acceptances than available seats), I think it will happen again. Who do you think might have this problem in 2008?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[wjustice]

I don't know. Actually, my guess had been that they would be more cautious giving out acceptances because of the craziness with the new MCAT and applications numbers and draw more from the waiting list.

 

[LizzyM]

I agree. Fewer acceptances, more waitlist.

 

[PeepshowJohnny]

Yo momma! Oh!

 

[Tofutti27]

Then do you think more people will come off of waitlists this year? Or will it all even out...

 

[LizzyM]

How many wil come off the waitlists remains to be seen.

This is like >120 concurrent games of musical chairs.
Each circle of chairs is a school. Each applicant with an offer has a golden ticket. Each person with a waitlist has a silver ticket.

You may have the golden ticket that gives you the right to take a chair in one circle or you may have the golden tickets for seven different circles. But when the music stops, you can only sit in one chair.

Now every school hands out more tickets than it has chairs. It is betting that the other schools do, too. Imagine if you had 100 chairs in each of 100 schools and 8,000 applicants with offers. Let's say that the 100 schools make 20,000 offers, (2 offers for every seat) and on average every applicant has 3 or 4 circles to choose from. When everyone sits down, we are going to have 2,000 empty seats. Now that might be 2 empty seats at each school, or it migh be no empty seats at several schools and another school with 12 empty seats. Where it gets dicey is that someone who had a golden ticket at school A and a silver ticket at school B can get out of that seat at School A and go over to School B if School B calls with an offer of a golden ticket. Now school A has an empty seat it didn't expect at the outset. At some point, someone who has only silver tickets gets a call to fill a seat. In all, some 2,000 people who had been left on the sidelines in the original musical chairs game will join the game.

What happens very rarely is that there aren't enough seats at a given school and someone can't sit down at their chosen school, despite a golden ticket. It happens very rarely and is a nightmare for deans.

Let the music begin.

 

[Lshapley]

Thank for the info, LizzyM. I was wondering if there might be some schools who might see a surge in popularity this year for some reason and be unprepared for it (such as Drexel last year). If I had to name names, I would go with RWJ this year. I know they have admitted more in the past than they would have liked and I wouldn't be surprised if that continued and they became this year's Drexel.

On the other hand, all schools might be acting more cautious in lieu of what happened at Drexel last year and this year we end up with more waitlist movement than before. Who knows?

 

[Drogba]

What an involved analogy...

 

[bodonid]

What happens very rarely is that there aren't enough seats at a given school and someone can't sit down at their chosen school, despite a golden ticket. It happens very rarely and is a nightmare for deans.

Let the music begin.

I don't feel like this would be the case. If I am wrong (and I probably am, since both of my schools DON'T overaccept their classes) then tell me, but I don't think that people who were accepted would later be told that they were no longer accepted due to class overload. Or is that not what you were saying? Excuse me if the extended metaphor has made me dizzy (musical chair runaround, then ) but a good metaphor, nonetheless.

 

[blurry]

I'm putting my money on Harvard to overaccept... gotta love the longshots! 😀

 

[majik1213]

I don't feel like this would be the case. If I am wrong (and I probably am, since both of my schools DON'T overaccept their classes) then tell me, but I don't think that people who were accepted would later be told that they were no longer accepted due to class overload. Or is that not what you were saying? Excuse me if the extended metaphor has made me dizzy (musical chair runaround, then ) but a good metaphor, nonetheless.

i don't think Lizzy meant to imply this case. I know that in the case of Drexel, they offered reduced tuition for students who deferred a year of admission. The idea here is that the Dean's were like, oh ****, we gotta think of something, fast! And that was their solution. I doubt people receive revoked acceptances, but I have heard of revoked rejections (usually when new MCAT scores are loaded into your application).

 

[annndyr]

I think it was mentioned that a student with an offer that a school cannot fulfill would likely receive some very sweet deal to defer for a yr.

Not sure what kind of sweet deal, though. But they wouldnt be outright denied a seat after they receive an acceptance


EDIT: Of course I type slow enough to be the second person to post this.

I don't feel like this would be the case. If I am wrong (and I probably am, since both of my schools DON'T overaccept their classes) then tell me, but I don't think that people who were accepted would later be told that they were no longer accepted due to class overload. Or is that not what you were saying? Excuse me if the extended metaphor has made me dizzy (musical chair runaround, then ) but a good metaphor, nonetheless.

 

[LizzyM]

I heard that overaccepting happened at Cornell years ago and now you tell me Drexel had a little bit of a problem last year. I can tell you that the likelihood of this happening might be 1 in 50,000. When you consider that about 18,000 get admitted per year, you can see that the odds of it happening anywhere are slim.

In the rare case that it does happen, it is like getting bumped from an airline where you held a ticket -- the school if going to offer you something very nice in exchange for deferring for a year. I heard that at Cornell it was a year's tuition.

 

[UVABranch]

wow Lizzy ur up late! If I had an acceptance and didn't get a seat, I think tuition is the only thing that would coushion the blow...I've been trying so long it would definitly hurt a bit. Although knowing I HAD a seat wouldn't be that bad I guess, "what's another year..."

 

[novastorm]

This is rare and I cant imagine what a nightmare it must be for everyone invovled, I've heard of it happening before.

 

[Bacchus]

wow Lizzy ur up late! If I had an acceptance and didn't get a seat, I think tuition is the only thing that would coushion the blow...I've been trying so long it would definitly hurt a bit. Although knowing I HAD a seat wouldn't be that bad I guess, "what's another year..."

This would be the ideal situation for a "year off". Knowing you don't have to apply. However, I would have to find a job that is extremely stimulating or I'd be bored out of my mind.

 

[Drogba]

I heard that overaccepting happened at Cornell years ago and now you tell me Drexel had a little bit of a problem last year. I can tell you that the likelihood of this happening might be 1 in 50,000. When you consider that about 18,000 get admitted per year, you can see that the odds of it happening anywhere are slim.

In the rare case that it does happen, it is like getting bumped from an airline where you held a ticket -- the school if going to offer you something very nice in exchange for deferring for a year. I heard that at Cornell it was a year's tuition.

Not really equivalent to starting your career a year later. They should offer you a full ride or atleast 150k, the average yearly earning of a primary care doc, to be fair.

 

[Bre]

Yeah I agree Drogba, it would be a terrible idea to defer for a year in exchange for one year of tuition paid. The one year of lost salary would far exceed that of one years tuition+interest.

 

[NonTradMed]

Hm, didn't realize schools ever overadmitted. That's strange. Our schools always seem to admit the exact same number every year. Perhaps they also make sweet deals in the back rooms with students to defer. 😀

 

[medfool24]

Any chances on GW? LOL maybe I'm just dreaming.

 

[Law2Doc]

Yeah I agree Drogba, it would be a terrible idea to defer for a year in exchange for one year of tuition paid. The one year of lost salary would far exceed that of one years tuition+interest.

You could still work during that deferral year though (effectively getting paid tuition on top of whatever salary you could get out of college). Not such a bad deal considering the time value of money means money you get this year is generally worth a lot more than money you will get sometime down the road.

At any rate overadmitting is hugely problematic for the schools -- most don't have the infrastructure for more students -- and so you can expect schools to be much more careful. A bunch of schools got burned the last couple of years when more students attended than they expected. So the number outright accepted should go down a handful and schools may use the waitlist a bit more, just to avoid the issue.

 

[smq123]

Last year I know Drexel did and gave at least one student a sweat deal to defer a year. With a record number of applicants and over 120 schools (most of which dole out more acceptances than available seats), I think it will happen again. Who do you think might have this problem in 2008?

No one.

I think that many adcoms that were facing a similar problem (or could have potentially faced that problem) were freaked out by that last year. This year, I think that they're going to be more cautious.

The rumor is that Drexel is considering admitting far fewer students than they did last year, and just taking more people off the waitlist. The other rumor is that Drexel will be cutting down on the maximum number of people that will be in the class of 2012, because they don't have enough space and resources to have an extra-large class of 2011 AND a regular-sized class of 2012. So, while that one student got a "sweet deal" to defer, the people applying this year might be SOL.

 

[MossPoh]

I heard that overaccepting happened at Cornell years ago and now you tell me Drexel had a little bit of a problem last year. I can tell you that the likelihood of this happening might be 1 in 50,000. When you consider that about 18,000 get admitted per year, you can see that the odds of it happening anywhere are slim.

In the rare case that it does happen, it is like getting bumped from an airline where you held a ticket -- the school if going to offer you something very nice in exchange for deferring for a year. I heard that at Cornell it was a year's tuition.

I think it'd have to be more than a year's tuition for me. In the grand scheme of things that isn't that much, especially when you consider how much you'd make with that extra year as a doctor. 2 or 3 years free and it becomes a little more tempting. I could travel guilt free for that year...that'd be sweet.

 

[MossPoh]

You could still work during that deferral year though (effectively getting paid tuition on top of whatever salary you could get out of college). Not such a bad deal considering the time value of money means money you get this year is generally worth a lot more than money you will get sometime down the road.

How many people will be able to snag up a nice 40 or 50k job though? Most businesses would be very unhappy if they hired someone, trained them, and then they quit less than a year later. It most likely leaves you with crappier jobs.

Lets say tuition is 30k, housing/food for that year is 12k, transportation costs...minimum, maybe 500 dollars, books supplies and what not if not included, another 1k, computer if not included 1,500, expensive coffee from the coffee shop 2+ dollars a cup...it builds up real fast. Many people going into med school don't have very marketable degrees for the short term. The beginning pay for a biology major isn't very high....you can do some cool jobs, but I still fail to see how a year of working for 15-20 dollars an hour + 30,000 off would negate a potential year making $130+ an hour. (I know with interest rates it would grow) I generally agree with you, but I think this is just a deal where we all have our own tipping point....mine involves more money in the future for potential health complications, kid's tuitions, and retirement...but if you just want less stress and finer living at the time, then that is perfectly fine as well.

I get a cool job when I have time, but I have connections. Better not anger me...I'm going to be doing background checks for the government. (Pays great and requires only 20 hours a week or so)

 

[Lshapley]

I had seen on an earlier post that the reduced tuition offer at Drexel (1/2 off to defer a year) was offered to their entire incoming class, but only one person took them up on the offer.

I didn't realize Cornel had this happen a few years back. LizzyM, your stats (1 in 50,000) are probably right for students, but for schools it might be more like 1 in 500. It just seems to me that offering more acceptances than seats is a gamble. On one hand, if you give out too many waitlists, students who may have matriculated in the past might be turned off and go with an acceptance they receive somewhere else. On the other, if you give out too many, you risk the overacceptance problem. Personally, I think option A is the smarter choice. Why don't more schools only offer a number of acceptances equal to the number of seats available and then pull off the waitlist as real seats open up? Is this a competition thing? They are non-profits...why can't they just all agree to use the same system (alah AMCAS)?

 

[LizzyM]

Every school wants the really great applicants and it would be crazy to waitlist them. There are more great applicants than there are seats and experience shows that if you offer admission to the great applicants that a small proportion will come but when they have 4-8 offers, many will go elsewhere. So, everyone makes offers to those great applicants knowing that only 20% will say yes and then figure on filling the remainder of the class with very good candidates. The question is: invite those very good applicants straight out, knowing that 33% may matriculate, or waitlist them and run the risk of having them go to a school that offered them a flat out offer of admission.

Let's say a school has 100 seats to fill

A(.2) + B(.33)= 100 - C

Where A is excellent applicants ,B is very good applicants and C is applicants who come off the waitlist.

The question becomes, how many applicants are in group A, how many will you place in group B and how many will you need to fill group C.

Now let's say that you've interviewed 1,000 and 20% of that group could be classified as excellent applicants. Should you offer half of them admission because you don't want to make more offers than you have seats? That doesn't seem sensible because experience shows if you make offers to all 200, ~40 will matriculate. That leaves 60 open seats. Experience shows that you'll need to make offers to about 180 applicants to fill those 60 seats. Now you could be conservative and admission to fewer than 180 of those very good applicants in case you manage to pull more than the expected 20% of excellent applicants. Do you see the challenge?

 

[LizzyM]

How many people will be able to snag up a nice 40 or 50k job though?

With any luck you have at least one prospective student who already has a cushy job and who can continue in that job for another year. Also possible that someone might jump at the chance to get a research job at the school and get a jump on a project that can propel them into a good residency. Schools have enough information about the incoming class that they can hand pick the incoming student who is likely to "take the bait".

 

[bcntequiero]

Yes...I would take the bait (no harm in staying in my job for another year), although I would prefer to get an outright acceptance and not have to do so!!!😛

 

[Lshapley]

Oh LizzyM, you are answering these posts intelligently! I was intending for this thread to be a mindless, gossip-corner on SDN where speculation runs rampant and caution is thrown to the wind

 

[seraph524]

I always think WashU MSTP will overadmit...they interview ~120, accept 2/3 for a class size of ~20.

 

[DocCallaway]

I would definately take free tuition for a year of deferment. I think alot of us underestimate some peoples desire to have a year of guilt free fun. Alot of people apply eventhough they want a free year, but due to acceptances being so hard to get sometimes, people are forced to apply broadly and early, just in case that extra year is forced.

 

[Smctbone]

I wouldnt mind having a year of guilt free fun, but does a "deferred" student status mean anything to lenders? A lot of us have loans to worry about, and that's a full year of having to pay back loans because of the non-student status.
Now if schools offer to pay off my loans instead of reducing tuition I'd be all over that deal 😀

 

[fisko82]

Any chances on GW? LOL maybe I'm just dreaming.

medfool, what is your avatar from/what is it supposed to be? Every time I see it, I think of some guy repeatedly pushing his man boobs up and down with his hands 😕

And back to the topic, Wayne overadmitted last year but I doubt they'll have the same problem this year as they seem to be waitlisting a ton of people this time around.

 

[sunny1]

In a similar but opposite vein, I remember hearing one year (not too long ago) that a particular school went through #49 of 50 on their waitlist to accept students. Granted, there are outside events that would have to lead to this kind of situation (some kind of significant pending change to the school like its curriculum that scares potential students away for that one year).

 

[Lshapley]

In a similar but opposite vein, I remember hearing one year (not too long ago) that a particular school went through #49 of 50 on their waitlist to accept students. Granted, there are outside events that would have to lead to this kind of situation (some kind of significant pending change to the school like its curriculum that scares potential students away for that one year).

That's interesting, sunny1. I hadn't thought about that angle. I wonder if that might have some effect on RWJ (some professor turnover) or OHSU (drastic rise in tuition and cutbacks due to loss of tort cap).

 

[BabyJ]

medfool, what is your avatar from/what is it supposed to be? Every time I see it, I think of some guy repeatedly pushing his man boobs up and down with his hands 😕

And back to the topic, Wayne overadmitted last year but I doubt they'll have the same problem this year as they seem to be waitlisting a ton of people this time around.

Its from a Japanese cartoon called Bleach, if I am not mistaken.

 

[Phoenix.]

I could be wrong, but I think I read some posts last year about how in recent years MCW over-accepted and had to offer 10k off tuition to get people to defer. And then the following year they so under-accepted that they ended up offering acceptances to some applicants they had previously rejected post-interview.

 

[PleaseBelieveit]

I could be wrong, but I think I read some posts last year about how in recent years MCW over-accepted and had to offer 10k off tuition to get people to defer. And then the following year they so under-accepted that they ended up offering acceptances to some applicants they had previously rejected post-interview.

Yeah, I think the one person at Drexel who sat the year out only received 10K off of their tuition...

 

[medfool24]

medfool, what is your avatar from/what is it supposed to be? Every time I see it, I think of some guy repeatedly pushing his man boobs up and down with his hands 😕

And back to the topic, Wayne overadmitted last year but I doubt they'll have the same problem this year as they seem to be waitlisting a ton of people this time around.

It is from Bleach, a show I rarely watch anymore. The guy is supposed to be some magician and that maneuver is "Bwahahaha," it's actually sort of funny in a dumb way when you watch it on video.

Hrm...I should probably change my avatar.

Back to the topic, I did hear about MCW overadmitting a few years back as well...

 

[hmm...]

No one.

I think that many adcoms that were facing a similar problem (or could have potentially faced that problem) were freaked out by that last year. This year, I think that they're going to be more cautious.

The rumor is that Drexel is considering admitting far fewer students than they did last year, and just taking more people off the waitlist. The other rumor is that Drexel will be cutting down on the maximum number of people that will be in the class of 2012, because they don't have enough space and resources to have an extra-large class of 2011 AND a regular-sized class of 2012. So, while that one student got a "sweet deal" to defer, the people applying this year might be SOL.

They certainly will not do what they did last year, but they will not have a smaller '12 class. It will be a regular sized class and not a class w/ an extra 30 students.

 

[Law2Doc]

How many people will be able to snag up a nice 40 or 50k job though? Most businesses would be very unhappy if they hired someone, trained them, and then they quit less than a year later. It most likely leaves you with crappier jobs.

The incoming nontrads frequently could. I Know I could have done short term contract work for a year (subbing in for lawyers on real estate closings and the like) and made a lot more than you are describing (not including the tuition), and nobody would really care if I only did it for a year and then left -- that's sort of the expectation. As mentioned above, there are probably a handful of folks earning good money before med school that for the right price would keep earning for another year.

 

[psych]

If I could, I would definitely defer a year. The year worth of lost income would suck but people don't go into medicine for the $$$ right? I'm exhausted and would love to enjoy life a little bit before diving into life as a med student. I would probably take 2 easy online classes/semester at a JC to defer loans. It would be fun to get a job, travel, hang out with friends & family, while I'm still young.

 

[GulabJamooMD]

Last year I believe Stanford did. My friend was accepted after his late interview, but because the class was full, they could only accept him for next year's class (entering 2008). He ended up going to another top school, b/c he did not want to waste a year...

 

[pedro4199]

The incoming nontrads frequently could. I Know I could have done short term contract work for a year (subbing in for lawyers on real estate closings and the like) and made a lot more than you are describing (not including the tuition), and nobody would really care if I only did it for a year and then left -- that's sort of the expectation. As mentioned above, there are probably a handful of folks earning good money before med school that for the right price would keep earning for another year.

I am taking a year off between med school and college. Although I dont make very much money, the freedom is priceless. Take a year off if you can people. You wont be sorry.

 

[scowdeva]

I am taking a year off between med school and college. Although I dont make very much money, the freedom is priceless. Take a year off if you can people. You wont be sorry.

I agree. I took this year off, and although I have had to defend that in more than one interview, I am very glad I did it. I have taken the minimum classes to defer loans, and done some more volunteering, but mostly it has been a nice chance to grow up a bit and bond with my fiance before we barely ever see each other (at least for a few years).

 

[Textuality]

... but mostly it has been a nice chance to grow up a bit and bond with my fiance before we barely ever see each other (at least for a few years).

Hehe, one of my favorite reasons that I'm taking a year off 🙂

 

[silverlining1]

Last year I believe Stanford did. My friend was accepted after his late interview, but because the class was full, they could only accept him for next year's class (entering 2008). He ended up going to another top school, b/c he did not want to waste a year...

I wouldn't mind this at all, especially from Stanford. I was originally in a rush to get through all my schooling, but now I wouldn't mind taking some time off because I've had a change in romantic situation.