WL after Interviews always?

[crknwk2000]

Hi,
My daughter is on a couple of waitlists after interviewing. Which, to me, seems more positive than an outright R, but my daughter tells me that you're almost always just put on a WL if you don't get the A after interviewing. Does anyone know if this is true or do a significant amount of people get an outright R vs WL after interviewing?
Thank you for any insight.

This mom really, really despises this whole process....it's brutal.

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[Mr.Smile12]

Welcome to the forums.

Read

From Waitlist to Offer: Inside an Admissions Committee - SDN

The Student Doctor Network provides free tools, resources, and advising services to help students become health professionals.

www.studentdoctor.net

 

[AJS59]

Hi,
My daughter is on a couple of waitlists after interviewing. Which, to me, seems more positive than an outright R, but my daughter tells me that you're almost always just put on a WL if you don't get the A after interviewing. Does anyone know if this is true or do a significant amount of people get an outright R vs WL after interviewing?
Thank you for any insight.

This mom really, really despises this whole process....it's brutal.

It's very school dependent. Some will do this, others may do more rejections.

A couple of waitlists is a good sign. If she has new updates, consider having her send those; if not, it's just a waiting game. And if she hasn't gotten an A yet, begin preparing for reapplying, just in case

 

[Goro]

Hi,
My daughter is on a couple of waitlists after interviewing. Which, to me, seems more positive than an outright R, but my daughter tells me that you're almost always just put on a WL if you don't get the A after interviewing. Does anyone know if this is true or do a significant amount of people get an outright R vs WL after interviewing?
Thank you for any insight.

This mom really, really despises this whole process....it's brutal.

WL'ing is more common than outright rejections as a whole. One has to work at getting rejected.

 

[crknwk2000]

WL'ing is more common than outright rejections as a whole. One has to work at getting rejected.

Ah, so getting Waitlisted is really not super positive since it sounds hard to get an outright R after an interview unless it went really, really poorly. I guess it's like everything with this process...more hoping and lots and lots of waiting.

Thanks for weighing in.

 

[Goro]

Ah, so getting Waitlisted is really not super positive since it sounds hard to get an outright R after an interview unless it went really, really poorly. I guess it's like everything with this process...more hoping and lots and lots of waiting.

Thanks for weighing in.

This will depend upon how many seats the school has vs how many interviewees.

The wise @LizzyM has used a staircase analogy about the process.

 

[crknwk2000]

Welcome to the forums.

Read

From Waitlist to Offer: Inside an Admissions Committee - SDN

The Student Doctor Network provides free tools, resources, and advising services to help students become health professionals.

www.studentdoctor.net

thanks for the link...good article! and it led me to a few other good ones, too re waitlists.
more waiting, more hoping...

 

[Moko]

My daughter is on a couple of waitlists after interviewing. Which, to me, seems more positive than an outright R, but my daughter tells me that you're almost always just put on a WL if you don't get the A after interviewing. Does anyone know if this is true or do a significant amount of people get an outright R vs WL after interviewing?

This is highly dependent on the school. For example, my school rejects about 1/4 to 1/3 of applicants post-interview (and almost all of these interviewees will make great doctors, it's just that we don't have enough spots to accommodate everyone!). Other schools waitlist a greater percentage of their interviewees with varying amounts of waitlist movement. Just my thoughts.

 

[LizzyM]

Waitlists keep hope alive ... but they can cause applicants to freeze in place and not move forward with preparation for another cycle.

In some cases, the likelihood of getting off the waitlist is almost nil. Many schools will make offers to 2.5 to 3.5 applicants for every seat (e.g. 300 offers when only 100 seats are available) knowing that most applicants will have several offers and about 200 will turn down the offers to go elsewhere. So if you are among the waitlisted you need for 201 people to turn down an offer before even one person (out of several hundred) is selected from the waitlist. Some years there may be 5 or 10 drawn from the waitlist, in other years it will be none.

Of course, some schools are more parsimonious with offers and really do go to the waitlist if just one person turns down the offer. Those tend to be the schools that for reasons based on costs and competitiveness, very few turn them down.

It is a frustrating process but what would you expect when almost 60% of the applicants in the pool in a given year will not get an offer that year?

 

[crknwk2000]

Waitlists keep hope alive ... but they can cause applicants to freeze in place and not move forward with preparation for another cycle.

In some cases, the likelihood of getting off the waitlist is almost nil. Many schools will make offers to 2.5 to 3.5 applicants for every seat (e.g. 300 offers when only 100 seats are available) knowing that most applicants will have several offers and about 200 will turn down the offers to go elsewhere. So if you are among the waitlisted you need for 201 people to turn down an offer before even one person (out of several hundred) is selected from the waitlist. Some years there may be 5 or 10 drawn from the waitlist, in other years it will be none.

Of course, some schools are more parsimonious with offers and really do go to the waitlist if just one person turns down the offer. Those tend to be the schools that for reasons based on costs and competitiveness, very few turn them down.

It is a frustrating process but what would you expect when almost 60% of the applicants in the pool in a given year will not get an offer that year?

It's such a painful, nerve wracking process. Luckily this cycle (her 2nd) she did get an A at DO school, but I think she'd prefer MD if she could get off one of these waitlists. And she just got 2 more interviews in the past week, so who the heck knows how this will all shake out. So much fun!!!!

 

[LunaOri]

It sounds like she’s having a good cycle, with an acceptance and several interviews! The waiting is painful, but it will be over in a few months, and she can look forward to becoming a doctor.

 

[crknwk2000]

It sounds like she’s having a good cycle, with an acceptance and several interviews! The waiting is painful, but it will be over in a few months, and she can look forward to becoming a doctor.

Yep, this second cycle is much better than last year (zero IIs), but still not a slam dunk. But such is life, right?! And yes, either way DO or MD, she's going to get her biggest wish to become a doctor. No doctors at all in our family so this is all very, very new to us.