How many Med Schools do people typically apply to?

M's Mom · 01-24-2010, 10:27 PM

After read the FAQs, I'm still confused about how the med school application process works.

1) I notice that some medical schools have Early Decision and Regular Decision. Does it work the same way as for undergrad applications (that is, you have to choose one school only and if you are selected by them, you must attend that school?) Or can you apply to multiple schools early decision? How many and who decides that?

2) If you don't apply anywhere early decision is there a limit on how many schools you can apply to? How many do people typically apply to?

3) I am correct in gathering that there is a multiple step process? You submit a preliminary application with a personal statement, transcripts and letters of rec. If the school is interested, they invite you to submit a supplemental application, and if they are still interested, you get get invited to interview. And only then do they decide who to admit.

Please straighten me out if I have this process wrong.

norcalguy · 01-24-2010, 11:08 PM

1) No, early decision is not the same as for undergrad. Almost no one applies early decision to any medical school. There is no sufficient evidence that applying ED helps you get any med school. Also, since you cannot apply to any other med schools until you receive your ED decision (October 1st I believe?), it will make your application CATASTROPHICALLY late to all other med schools if you don't get into your ED school (this is in contrast to college apps where you won't have any disadvantage).

For college applications, ED data indicates that ED acceptance rates are 3-4X higher than RD acceptance rates. No only is such data not available for med schools, even if the advantage is 3-4X, boosting your acceptance chances from 2% to 6% is hardly worth the risk.

So what are the criteria for applying ED to a med school:

1) You have COMPELLING reason for attending that specific med school. If you are 35 years old and have 2 kids attending the local elementary school and have been living in the area for the last 7 years and have a husband who recently got a job there, then you have a compelling reason for attending the local med school. If you are 22 years old and you like the thought of attending Yale for med school, you do NOT have a compelling reason.

2) You are overqualified for the school. It's hard for students to be overqualified for a school like Weill-Cornell or Yale. We're usually talking about great applicants (3.9/35) who want to attend the local so-so med school. They already have a great chance of getting in but absolutely want to boost their chances close to 100% as much as possible due to the compelling reason (see above).

You must satisfy both criteria to apply ED.

On average, people apply to around 12-15 med schools, more or less depending on your targets and how competitive your application is and your home state.

And, yes, med school apps is a very long, very expensive, very onerous, multi-step process.

bluedevilmike · 01-25-2010, 11:11 AM

I've only known of one student who applied ED to a medical school. Her fiance was already at that program, and despite it not being highly ranked it was her top choice.

When she took the MCAT, she absolutely panicked because her MCAT score was way too high. She was eleven points above this school's average. She actually called AAMC to try to figure out if there had been some kind of mistake.

She applied early decision -- she would much rather have gotten an MCAT score eight points lower and been able to apply via the normal route, but that just wasn't in the cards -- and fortunately got in.

M's Mom · 01-25-2010, 01:01 PM

Thanks, that was very helpful. But I still don't understand why people only apply to 15-20 med schools. The likelihood of not getting in anywhere is high and the consequences are serious. It's costly to apply, but nothing compared to the cost of medical school itself, so why don't people apply to 40 or 50 schools? You are using the same common application for all of them, right? (One app, one personal statement, same letters of rec on file) Unless they all invite you to send in the supplemental, you probably won't have 50 institutions to respond to (and if you're that well loved, you can narrow the field then, assuming it's not humanly possible to write supplementals for that many schools. But even the supplementals have to be somewhat repetative...)

I'm asking because nephew, a very bright guy who decided late in his college career to choose medicine, applied to 20 schools, got interviews at 7 and offered a place at only 1. Perhaps his ECs weren't sufficiently strong to demonstrate his commitment, but at least 7 schools thought they were strong enough to want to interview him. If you send out 20 apps and end up so close to total rejection, it is a bit dismaying. Wouldn't your odds be so much better if you applied to more places?

A follow up question:

How do you decide which schools to apply to? Nephew says you're a doctor whereever you go (he's not interested in research), and he chose based on location. Is that all there is to it? Your example, Bluedevilmike, suggests that if you apply somewhere that you are overqualified for, they will reject you just for that. But why? If you have a compelling reason for wanting to attend, that should suffice, shouldn't it? The fact that your fiance is attending sounds reasonably compelling, I would think...

bluedevilmike · 01-25-2010, 01:09 PM

Most schools nowadays give a supplemental to everybody. So applying to 25 schools usually guarantees at least 20 supplementals (usually called secondaries). Since any particular student can usually only handle 20 secondaries anyway, there's no point in applying to any more schools than that. And even if you could, you can't really do more than 10 interviews anyway.

Besides, there might not be 50 schools to which you can apply. There's only about 120 schools total, and a lot of those simply won't take people from out-of-state. And a lot won't take students with MCATs too low or too high, so that eliminates a large group too.

A 1:7 ratio might mean your nephew wasn't a very good interviewer. It might also mean that he got a bunch of waitlists from people who thought he was overqualified and he didn't pursue those. Could mean a lot of things.

* * * *

Susie (not her real name) would have stood an okay chance at her school even with her 3.9/39. But it definitely would have been dangerous, so she used ED to really convince them. My intuition -- and hers and our premed advisor's -- was that a fiance isn't quite worth 11 points.

M's Mom · 01-25-2010, 01:21 PM

Thanks, that was very helpful. I really appreciate you taking the time to explain the basics to an obvious neophyte.

norcalguy · 01-25-2010, 01:30 PM

Cost ($30 for the primary app to each additional school + $50-150 per secondary app) is a concern. Time is also a concern. Most secondary applications have anywhere b/w 0 to 9 essays. I would say that most applicants, especially if they are attending college while applying, can only handle 20-25 applications AT MOST. 7 interviews from 20 applications is a pretty good ratio. 1 acceptance shows that he wasn't very good at interviewing, not that he should've applied to more schools.

M's Mom · 01-25-2010, 03:55 PM

Nephew had 2 waitlists which he didn't pursue-and his unbiased aunt thinks he's pretty charming-but you could be right that he didn't interview well or that he scored too high for their profile.

Any thoughts re my question about how people decide which schools to apply to? Bluedevilmike's answer seems to imply (though I may be over-interpreting) that people only apply to 20 or so schools because that's the entire pool that would even consider them, given constraints on grade, in-state restrictions, etc...Do the programs themselves not differ substantially? I've seen discussions here about how intense or laid back a program is, whether they offer rural medicine, etc...I assume there are some schools with unique specialties-but if you just want straight up medicine, how then do you choose?

Oh, and is the reason medical schools don't want someone whose grades/scores are too far above the school's profile because they are worried about their acceptance rates? Why would they care if half the students they make offers to turn them down? It's not like schools are competing with each other the way undergrad institutions do-or am I mistaken about this too.

norcalguy · 01-25-2010, 04:13 PM

There's not that many med schools in the US. After you eliminate all of the public med schools you are not eligible for or have no interest in, the pool shrinks down a lot. Secondly, based on soley your competitiveness (your MCAT/GPA) and your desired location (West Coast vs. Midwest, urban vs. rural, etc.), you should be able to assemble a good list. After that, it depends on how offers you interviews and acceptances.

Yield is very important for med schools because they do not want to over or underenroll. If you underenroll, you lose federal funding for every seat that goes unfilled. If you overenroll, you won't have the resources to accommodate the extra students. Med school classes are small so even an extra 7 kids can be a huge burden. University of Michigan a few years ago overenrolled by about 9 kids and had to offer them free tuition in order to take a year off so they could cut their class size down to the correct size. Your yield is most predictable at your target demographic. It's risky to waste interview spots on high level applicants who may or may not come for the interview and who may or may not choose to enroll at your institution.

bluedevilmike · 01-25-2010, 04:21 PM

If your nephew received four rejections in 7 interviews, that's a HORRIFYING sign. Almost all interviews, at least at private medical schools, lead to waitlists. (This goes back to what NCG was saying about trying to get very precise class sizes. Medical schools need very long waitlists.)

I was rejected one time out of 11 interviews, and my premed advisor gave me a look and asked, "What on earth did you do there?". Rejections post-interview -- again, this is more true among private schools -- are pretty severe statements indeed.

M's Mom · 01-25-2010, 06:04 PM

Is your "hit rate" typical, BDM? 10 out of 11 interviews resulted in offers?

Does this mean that if you are offered an interview, you are probably going to be made an offer unless you blow it somehow?

And if you apply regular decision (November 1), when do you typically find out whether you're in or out?

bluedevilmike · 01-25-2010, 06:14 PM

No no -- 4 offers (which is a little high) and six waitlists, which is the key here. The point is that a straight-up rejection (rather than a waistlist) is an anomaly. If your nephew got 4 out of 7, that's a very alarming rate.

bluedevilmike · 01-25-2010, 06:15 PM

PS: Timing Alert

M's Mom · 01-25-2010, 06:59 PM

Yes, I saw that thread. It's a terrific timeline but it stops just when things get really interesting...

Thank you for the education. It's been very enlighting!

mom2boys · 01-25-2010, 07:03 PM

DS in the middle of the process right now. I have to agree that about 20 is the most applications one can handle. Those secondary applications are very time consuming. DS spent every single spare minute he had this past summer working on those applications. Some were "easier" than others but none of them were a piece of cake to complete. Applying to 40 schools would drive an applicant insane eventually.

When DS selected his schools he looked at location, how his grades/MCAT scores matched the program, residency acceptances, reputation, cost. Not necessarily in that order, but that is what he looked at. He applied to 20 schools. He got interviews at 9 schools with one interview left to do yet. So far he has 3 acceptances, 3 waitlists and two schools left to hear decisions from. He withdrew from one school after the interview process (for several reasons that I won't go into right now).

Each school has its' own timetable on when they notify the students of acceptances. Correct me if I am wrong BDM or NCG, but I think AMCAS does not let any school release decisions until the beginning of October and all decisions have to be out sometime in March ( or is it April?). You have until May 15th to notify the schools of your final decision. You can be on a waitlist up to the very last second of med school classes starting and I have heard of people being called a few days into the semester.

DS has heard back within 3 days from one school and a couple months on others. In his case, he has heard back from most of them within 3-6 weeks.