withdrawing before acceptance?

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illmaatic

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i interviewed at a school that will be sending out a decision shortly. however, i'm pretty sure i don't want to go to this school.

so i'm aware that if you decline an acceptance(s) (and aren't accepted anywhere else) you're quasi-blacklisted from all med schools.

however, i just wanted to double/triple check that if i withdraw before they can send me their decision, i'll be okay. i'd rather be a reapplicant than attend this school.

i'll be okay to reapply?
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What are your stats? How was your app cycle? School list?

Being a reapplicant is never good. Also how would you answer a question next cycle if someone asks about where you interviewed/their decision (which a friend of mine was asked about as a reapplicant)?
 
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Gilakend said:
What are your stats? How was your app cycle? School list?

Being a reapplicant is never good. Also how would you answer a question next cycle if someone asks about where you interviewed/their decision (which a friend of mine was asked about as a reapplicant)?
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LizzyM 74 w/ high mcat; 3 interviews, one led to a rejection, the other is in a couple weeks; school list short because I’m picky about where I’d like to live for four years

I’m inclined to withdraw because the tuition is so exorbitant as to be predatory, which I didn’t know when I applied
 
illmaatic said:
LizzyM 74 w/ high mcat; 3 interviews, one led to a rejection, the other is in a couple weeks; school list short because I’m picky about where I’d like to live for four years

I’m inclined to withdraw because the tuition is so exorbitant as to be predatory, which I didn’t know when I applied
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You're going to be a doctor...you'll make it back.
 
illmaatic said:
Am I okay to withdraw before hearing their decision without fear of being blacklisted, mr/ms adcom?
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That's perfectly fine!

I can't recommend withdrawing from an accept unless you have another one in hand

And that Dr Adcom to you.
😉
 
illmaatic said:
Am I okay to withdraw before hearing their decision without fear of being blacklisted, mr/ms adcom?
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A word of caution, high stats re-applicants are in a particularly difficult situation...
 
KiddCo said:
Just out of curiosity, could you elaborate?
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There are relatively few reasons that a "high stats" candidate becomes a re-applicant.
I'll bet you can you guess what they are.
 
Here are my thoughts...

if you don't get into a target school this year, what makes you think you are likely to as a reapplicant? There aren't that many high stat applicants, and those that are rejected are because they didn't like something qualitative about you--harder to overcome. Also, outright interview rejections are kinda rare. I had six interviews and that led to 5 accept and 1 waitlist--keep in mind and evaluate your people skills honestly.

Also, you may end up with a fat scholarship negating tuition downside (which i honestly dont think matters). The convention is that your debt is safe at 2x your income. Well at 250k+... that's a lot of safe debt.

Finally, I honestly don't think where you go to med school matters that much. Sure, culture is kind of important and access to research yada yada. But we all learn the exact same thing.

Also, just make sure they haven't told AMCAS you have been accepted when you tell them nahhh.
 
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Goro said:
That's perfectly fine!

I can't recommend withdrawing from an accept unless you have another one in hand

And that Dr Adcom to you.
😉
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my apologies and thank you

samualjhatfield said:
Tough cookies, OP. Shouldn’t have applied to a school you didn’t want to go to.
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yeah well maybe this school shouldn't have a mandatory summer session (new policy for 2018 M1's) that adds an extra $30,000 in tuition. this wasn't something they told us during interview day btw (where they lied to us and gave us a much lower estimated cost of tuition), it was something i had to learn after calling the office of the registrar because even the financial aid office didn't know why they were such wild discrepancies in the different cost estimates i was seeing.

all in all the school has an estimated $120,000 per year cost. that is absurd and it is downright predatory.

gyngyn said:
There are relatively few reasons that a "high stats" candidate becomes a re-applicant.
I'll bet you can you guess what they are.
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THEBACKANDFORTH said:
Here are my thoughts...

if you don't get into a target school this year, what makes you think you are likely to as a reapplicant? There aren't that many high stat applicants, and those that are rejected are because they didn't like something qualitative about you--harder to overcome.
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maybe. i had very little shadowing when i applied, like well below the soft requirement i see on here. wasn't in primary care either. didn't realize that was a dealbreaker when i applied and my premed counselors never once cautioned me about it.

ortnakas said:
Would you really rather potentially not be a doctor than go to this school for four years? Because if this is ends up your only acceptance, that is what you are risking.
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i'd rather not end med school almost half a million in debt, yeah
 
illmaatic said:
Cost

Much love
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Have you looked into what it takes to get in-state tuition? I know some places like U of Missouri pretty much everyone gets in-state after MS1 even if they had no prior connection to the state.
 
Withdraw. Get a job. Reapply in 2 years and if anyone asks, you decided that you wanted to explore xyz before taking the leap into med school and after doing your thing you are ready for med school.

Illinois' state budget is in chaos and they are OOS friendly as way of generating cash for operating expenses.
 
THEBACKANDFORTH said:
Same. I can't imagine a medical school with a tuition price tag + cost of living more than 80-90k a year.

Especially a US allopathic school
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Oh, it can happen (obviously). For many years U of Colorado was ground zero for OOS robbery, I guess the UI system has upped its game.

illmaatic said:
Much love
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As stated above, the likelihood of getting IS tuition after a year might soften the impact. If not, LizzyM's advice is solid. Good luck.
 
Gottamn. I retract my criticism. Absolutely no one is going to pay $95K a year just for tuition. Even in state, what kind of public in-state school has such high tuition rates!? I took every school off of my list that was above $65K...let alone 30 thousand more than that. Granted, they do have a really high in state preference so the high tuition might be to deter applicants. And the tuition amount is on their MSAR (although, that might be new)
 
LizzyM said:
Withdraw. Get a job. Reapply in 2 years and if anyone asks, you decided that you wanted to explore xyz before taking the leap into med school and after doing your thing you are ready for med school.

Illinois' state budget is in chaos and they are OOS friendly as way of generating cash for operating expenses.
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sheesh two years? i'm about to be 26 lol. i would very much want to apply again this next go around, and i think i might need only a few tweaks to my app to have a more successful cycle. but that would be for another thread

plus i got one more interview lined up. interview at 3, and a doctor you'll be? ;_;
 
illmaatic said:
sheesh two years? i'm about to be 26 lol. i would very much want to apply again this next go around, and i think i might need only a few tweaks to my app to have a more successful cycle. but that would be for another thread

plus i got one more interview lined up. interview at 3, and a doctor you'll be? ;_;
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It is tough to withdraw your application in January to "find yourself" or do something you wanted to do before matriculating to med school, and then reapply in June with a believable story for why you didn't matriculate to medical school in 2019 when everything points toward a strong application. Reapplicants are looked at with suspicion, "why didn't this guy get in the first time?" You need to counter that with a strong story or you will be applying in 2020... and it will be for the third time, old man.

Good luck with that third interview. Let's hope the third time's the charm this year.
 
samualjhatfield said:
Hopefully this thread can serve as a lesson to applicants not to apply to public institutions that don’t like many OOS...
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For sure... while I didn’t read every detail re: OP’s situation, I feel like it’s really important to educate yourself on a school’s COA/tuition prior to applying. The info is fairly accessible online and definitely worth contacting the schools financial aid dept if it’s unclear.

Could you imagine paying interest on a $500k principle loan? I’m sure people have done this... but yikes...
 
CJhooper123 said:
For sure... while I didn’t read every detail re: OP’s situation, I feel like it’s really important to educate yourself on a school’s COA/tuition prior to applying. The info is fairly accessible online and definitely worth contacting the schools financial aid dept if it’s unclear.

Could you imagine paying interest on a $500k principle loan? I’m sure people have done this... but yikes...
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Hop over to the dental thread and it's practically the norm!
 
okay maybe a stupid question, but is there an official mechanism for withdrawing? i don't see anything on the amcas

or do i just send them an email or call them
 
ortnakas said:
Would you really rather potentially not be a doctor than go to this school for four years? Because if this is ends up your only acceptance, that is what you are risking.
Click to expand...

illmaatic said:
i'd rather not end med school almost half a million in debt, yeah
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My advice still stands as a general rule... but for debt starting around $500K, I'd have to concur.

Premeds reading this: do your research for you interview, and preferably even before you apply, so that you won't be in OP's unfortunate shoes.
 
I withdrew post interview, pre decision from my state school during the 2016-2017 cycle. I wanted to retake the MCAT and improve my application, as I didn't feel that I put together an application that best reflected my strengths and potential as a candidate.

I'm a re-applicant this year. I consider myself a somewhat high stat re-applicant (3.6 GPA from HYPSM, 519 MCAT), and I've had a successful cycle - I've been admitted to a great research oriented mid-tier school and am waiting on decisions from a few top schools. Interestingly enough, I re-applied to my state school, and they didn't even ask me about my decision to withdraw post interview during my interview this year. Feel free to PM if you have any questions, and best of luck!
 
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Harambe said:
I withdrew post interview, pre decision from my state school during the 2016-2017 cycle. I wanted to retake the MCAT and improve my application, as I didn't feel that I put together an application that best reflected my strengths and potential as a candidate.

I'm a re-applicant this year. I consider myself a somewhat high stat re-applicant (3.6 GPA from HYPSM, 519 MCAT), and I've had a successful cycle - I've been admitted to a great mid-tier school and am waiting on decisions from a few top schools. Interestingly enough, I re-applied to my state school, and they didn't even ask me about my decision to withdraw post interview during my interview this year. Feel free to PM if you have any questions, and best of luck!
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If you don't mind me asking, why didn't you wait to hear back from your state school? I understand OP not wanting to take on that kind of debt, but surely your state school wasn't so expensive and you reapplied anyway?
 
theKingLT said:
If you don't mind me asking, why didn't you wait to hear back from your state school? I understand OP not wanting to take on that kind of debt, but surely your state school wasn't so expensive and you reapplied anyway?
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Combination of difficult factors in my personal life + knowing that I could put together a better application that would make me more competitive for the higher ranked schools that better fit my career goals (research + academia). If my re-application was ever brought up in an interview, I owned up to my mistake of applying when I wasn't ready and with a poor school list, and I think it was well received.
 
Last summer, there was a post a quasi "hypothetical" situation on the internal Yammer forum (at a consulting company for large Federal agencies, VA, and NIH); LOTS of science people work there, lots and lots and lots

Anyway, the poster was saying they'd been accepted to USF - Morsani but didn't want to go there but had no other acceptances and didn't think "Morsani was a very good school have the higher elevated rankings as schools such as Georgetown, Harvard and U Penn" ... In trying to tell this "kid" that Morsani was an excellent school and it was my understanding, the new Dean wanted a median score of 517, that the school would only rise in ranking as the overall school got more research grants, etc.

Turns out, it was the FATHER of the kid... who had a 510 and 3.8 ... that was asking. Kid did NOT attend USF and suspect, will not be going to med school soon. He let the school know 3 days before school started.

No doubt, someone on the WL was overjoyed and overcome with tears hearing from USF that a seat had just opened.

Don't shoot yourself in the foot by rejecting a school because ultimately, if I'm the adcom (and I'm not at any school at any place in any country including the US), I'm going to wonder, "will they do it again to us?" People don't like rejection - students don't, professors don't, and adcom's don't.
 
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