<p>Cycle opens in about 3 weeks. 3 weeks!! Figured it’s about time to start this thread for the upcoming cycle. Hopefully we will all get good results like the 2010-2011 applicants.</p>
<p>In case some of you havent heard, AMCAS made some changes to their applications this year, and TMDSAS changed their prompt.</p>
<p>Good luck to all!</p>
<p>What are the changes?</p>
<p>And what do people do once the “cycle opens”? (wondering for next year)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>BDM to the rescue (as usual), and it starts before the cycle officially opens: </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/282027-timing-alert.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/282027-timing-alert.html</a></p>
<p>changes for amcas are a new childhood section and shorter character limits for ec descriptions as well as choosing your top 3 ecs.</p>
<p>when the apps open in may, you need to start working on them so they will be ready to be submitted in june.</p>
<p>???</p>
<p>A childhood section? </p>
<p>Dumb question…do you mean there are questions about K-12 years? or something like that? If so, is that to determine if the person had an underprivileged childhood?</p>
<p>From the 2012 instruction manual:</p>
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</p>
<p>The full manual can be read here: <a href=“https://www.aamc.org/students/download/131750/data/2012amcasinstructionmanual.pdf[/url]”>https://www.aamc.org/students/download/131750/data/2012amcasinstructionmanual.pdf</a></p>
<p>LOL, yet another attempt to level the playing ground. I am not particularly against this or anything like this. (much better than based on just the skin color.)</p>
<p>However, this does remind me that 100 years ago, the elite group of the society and the top colleges tried to force the applicants to provide information about parents (even where they were … living in the ghetto when your parents were young?) for another more evil purpose: in order to reduce the number of “brainy”/“feable-minded”/“not well-rounded” students from a particular “undesirable” ethic group (you know who they were – many of these are your professors/doctors/bankers/actors today.) We have gone a long way since then.</p>
<p>Off the topic: I ran into an interesting thread on SDN. In case you are interested in it: (If you have what the schools really want to look for, they will search high and low in your application to see if there is any merit and overlook all other potential weakness. You belong to the group of another extreme, they will try to find any possible fault and disqualify you. And, if you are slightly like the one who started this SDN thread below, stop devoting too much of your time to academics and get out of the classroom to do something unrelated to academics.)</p>
<h2>Also waitlisted, and very resentful because I have way above average stats for Baylor. Something I’ve been trying to deal with this whole cycle now. </h2>
<p>numbers are exactly that…number. i was always told that it’s the numbers that get you the interview, and your interview and ECs that get you the acceptance. don’t put everything on the numbers.</p>
<h2>off topic but fwiw…my state school (arizona) rejected people with 38s this yr. numbers only get you so far…there are so many other factors. </h2>
<h2>doubly off topic, but 9/10 odds no minorities with a 38 got rejected at UA this year</h2>
<h2>I’m not saying I’m angry because I think I’m better than other applicants, I just thought/was told going into this that my gpa/mcat would open some doors for me. Basically I feel like it’s “not fair” that I didn’t get in–I feel like I got passed over. Wouldn’t you be a little upset if you had a 39 and 4.0 for the last 3 years? I basically devoted the last 3 years of my life to academics, and kind of feel like the payoff wasn’t commensurate with the workload. Anyway, I don’t mean to complain, I know I need to get over it, it’s just like you said it’s a stressful process. Moral of the story, I should be happy with what I got.</h2>
<h2>Welcome to the club bro.</h2>
<h2>Yeahhhhhhh, I wouldn’t say YOU’RE in the club, bro. Judging by your MDApps, you didn’t too bad </h2>
<h2>Oh I’m not complaining by any means, but if we’re going to pretend that the medical admissions process is based solely on numbers to determine interview invites/acceptances, then I’m gunna be ****ed. </h2>
<h2>I just have to remind you that your numbers DID open doors for you. You got an interview. That was the open door. After that, a lot of it’s about finding the right student for the school. It’s a two way street–the interview/acceptance process isn’t all about what you want/think you deserve. The same thing will happen when you interview at residency programs. </h2>
<h2>Entitlement is fun!</h2>
<p>this childhood section is just going to become an area of game-playing. People are going to down-play any advantages that they had, and create exagerated sob stories if they think it’s going to give them an edge. </p>
<p>while I can understand the desire to know who was underprivileged because that is important, it will become an area of abuse.</p>
<p>AMCAS previously used zip code of birthplace and high school in order to determine things like socioeconomic diversity and underservice. That was imperfect for some obvious reasons, but it wasn’t the sort of thing one could fabricate. Oh well.</p>
<p>I’m wondering if this is a (new?) federal requirement for funding? Several of the summer REU’s my D applied for had similar questions and a short section to discuss one’s experience as being disadvantaged.</p>
<p>mcat2,
Your experience is different from my D’s. Hers proved more or less that numbers are everything. However, she applied only to 8 schools very close to home (her #1 criteria). Her acceptances pretty much lined up with Med. schools ranking. No singe post-interview rejection, couple of waitlists though, both at places that she herself would not choose to go anyway. Rejections were pre-interview. I would not say though, that she has devoted her UG to strictly academics, she has worked hard but also was involved in wide range of activities outside of academics. She is in a process of deciding which Med. School to attend, while being happy with her choices. I am sure that you are also happy, do not worry too much about negatives, being acepted to Med. School is a great accomplishment, congrats!</p>
<p>MiamiDAP, One applicant DS happens to know of made a comment regarding school choices. I wonder whether his words has some wisdom or not. That is what he said:</p>
<p>“I wish there is no ranking for medical schools. The existence of the ranking just confuses you when you need to make a decision (about which school to go to.)”</p>
<p>It seems he also placed a lot of emphasis on the location. Having a very good hook, he likely applied to half a dozen schools only (and got into many with a lot of free money offered by these schools.)</p>
<p>UC San Francisco School of Medicine professor (formerly a director of curriculum at Harvard, if memory serves) once described “fit” in the following way to some future medical students.</p>
<p>"Fit is important. It’s very important. And it’s okay to pay attention to seemingly trivial things in that respect. If you’re choosing between us and Penn and you happen to really like Philly cheesesteaks, or if you really like the Liberty Bell, it’s not stupid to pick Penn over us for that reason alone. If you like Chinatown and the Pacific Ocean, it’s not stupid to pick us over Penn for that reason alone.</p>
<p>Now, if the decision is us versus Thomas Jefferson [also in Philadelphia] and you really like Philly Cheesesteaks… well, you’re just going to have to go without for a few years."</p>
<hr>
<p>Of course, he’s picking in extreme situations; Penn and UCSF are almost precisely peer schools, and Thomas Jefferson is an excellent school but clearly not on par with Penn and UCSF as a research institution or in terms of selectivity. We’re not really facing either of those extremes here. But I thought it was a useful thing for him to say.</p>
<p>"“I wish there is no ranking for medical schools. The existence of the ranking just confuses you when you need to make a decision (about which school to go to.)”</p>
<p>-D. does not care much. Between 2 schools that she is considering, she is leanning towards lower ranked one, which is also more expensive (only 3 spots difference though). D. is very much inot “fit”, including city, social and her personal perception. “Gut feeling” is more accurate than most of us realize. But it is for those who trust themselves more than others.</p>
<p>I finally get to join this thread! My D is applying this cycle. She started college as a business major since she had talked herself out of her long dreamed goal of becoming a physician. She was not feeling the passion for her business classes and decided to look long and hard at what would make her really happy. So, at the midpoint of her junior year, she decided to pursue her dream. She took all of her pre-med requirements in 1 1/2 years, including a long hot summer down south last year. She was able to immediately get involved in research and clinical work. Luckily, she had been heavily involved in leadership and philanthropical work from the beginning of college. She fit in shadowing as well. I can only believe that she was meant to come to this decision, since everything has worked out so well. She will graduate with a BS in Business, with an emphasis in insurance and risk management. Hopefully, this will bring about some interesting discussion during interviews.</p>
<p>She has been working on her PS for the last two months, and is just about done. She graduates in two weeks, and then will be coming home for her gap year. Since she was not a science major, she was not able to secure any of the traditional gap year NIH spots. She was not too disappointed since working in the lab was not amongst her favorite things. She has had two job interviews while sh’e been home for the Easter weekend, so hopefully, she can find something to help her earn some money so she won’t have to be quite as poor during medical school. </p>
<p>She’s taking the MCAT on 5/20, so hopefully, she’ll do well enough to get an opportunity at her top choice schools.</p>
<p>kmkord, It appears you do not mention whether your D has had LORs lined up already. If not, she should get them before she leaves the campus – unless she lives very close to the school. (She still need to get to them asap even in that case.)</p>
<p>Last cycle, many applicants were burned by not having LORs sent to the medical schools as early as they had hoped for as they really did not have much control over professor’s schedule/priority.</p>
<p>Also, does her school have a premed committee? If yes, I think usually the premed needs to follow whatever they tell her to do according to their suggested time line – usually the first contact with school’s premed committee is 8-9 months before June when the official application cycle starts.</p>
<p>DS took MCAT toward the end of last May. (He is going to a medical school this summer/fall.) Somewhat late in my opinion because there is not enough time for a re-take if needed. He was also late in his decision to pursue this career path (officially for him at least) even though he had completed his prereqs relatively early in his college career (most done by the end of sophomore) because he was a science major.</p>
<p>mcat2: Thanks for the LOR reminder. According to my D, she has followed all the guidelines required by her committee, and the letters are already in process. Of all the requirements, this is the one that sounds the most confusing to me. Submitting to AMCAS or using Interfolio. </p>
<p>Luckily, my D is very on top of this whole process. I have been gathering information from this site and others, and funneling it to her for the last year and a half. Because of that, she has been very cognicant of timelines. She wants submit AMCAS on the first day in order to give herself the best possible chance.</p>
<p>She has a comprehensive list of schools she would like to apply to, but the MCAT is going to be the wildcard. I’m sure I’ll be seeking additional advice on where she should apply once we have the final numbers. Her current list includes:</p>
<p>Loyola University
Northwestern University
Rosalind Franklin
Rush University
SIU
University of Chicago
UIUC
MUSC
University of South Carolina
Stanford
Yale
George Washington University
Georgetown
Emory
Indiana University
University of Louisville
Johns Hopkins
Boston University
Harvard
Tufts
St. Louis University
Dartmouth
Columbia University
Mount Sinai
NYU
Weill Cornell Medical College
Wake Forest
Drexel
Jefferson Medical College
U Penn
Warren Alpert of Brown Uni
Vanderbilt
Medical College of Wisconsin
Mayo Medical School</p>
<p>34 schools on the list is a good starting point pre-MCAT. (Obviously she’ll have to cut that by about 50% once the score comes back.) What’s the home state? In general OOS publics (MUSC, MCW?) are usually statistically not very good bets.</p>
<p>Joining this thread as my daughter will be applying this cycle as well. Took her MCAT on 4/16, 3 of the 4 LOR’s have been turned in and has a interview with the Dean that is charge of pre-med this week. She has a internship on campus for the summer that will be 30 hours per week that should allow her time for essays. On average, how many hours per day/week do students spend on secondaries, and what percentage of schools send automatic secondaries as opposed to screened ones? I have also heard that you should have them turned around within 2 weeks. Are their deadlines for them, or is the 2 week just a rule of thumb?</p>
<p>BDM. I believe kimkord’s (and his/her D’s) home state is IL, unless they have moved since they posted a year or two ago.</p>
<p>kimkord, I would bet your D is really very on top of this whole process. If this is the case, she will be quite successful in the end.</p>
<p>BTW, where are there so many medical schools in IL? Is it because it is a blue state in the middle of many red states?</p>
<p>Tangent to the discussion here: I recently learned that the funding for residency programs (mostly funded by the Medicare program which itself appears to be on a life support, and its direction/livelihood is at the mercy of current/future politicians) has not been increased for decades. Also, many good residency programs for training the front-line primary doctors (including some highly ranked ones) have been shut down left and right (as there is not enough money incentive for the hospital or medical school in it.)</p>