@oxfordtennismom We found the private tutors via the site www.wyzant.com, where you can search for tutors in your local area. Finding the “good” ones needs some work besides reading people’s reviews on them. We’d try the first session to see how it goes.
The attitude of a student has lot to do with a successful tutoring. My D just do not care about tutoring, we tried in her HS years for a LONG time, including Kaplan and some one on one. But she just hated it, so we just have to let her do her own thing.
Today’s highlights: UCSD bloodbath. Though officially it is hold, mostly every one says it is soft rejection. 2 pages of posts with hold and most of them solid profile. Here is the highlight. Anything wrong?
3.9+ sGPA, 518+ MCAT,
1000 hours clinical work,
research at a UC,
IS, URM
Few years back heard some one in my neighborhood moved to TX when his son started freshman in HS, though his job is still in CA and not sold his house etc. I was wondering at that time but I agree now he is a wise man. It is becoming tall order to get MD seat in CA, even for IS.
https://meded.ucsd.edu/assets/21/File/Class%20Profile_%20Entering%202017_final(2).pdf
Med schools also reject students who they dont think will show up when they have a lot of candidates to review. I can see these type of students being above their average student. An URM with those credentials will be highly sought after.
They also have close to 8k applications from one of the commercial sites I looked at that I can’t link. They are interviewing only 750 which means at least 7000+ are being rejected upfront.
This week brought D two more II’s! She has been preparing for interviews every night. Is it common practice for interviews to be in the middle of the week on Wednesdays? Makes it tough when living in an area where it takes nearly a day of flight travel to get there (no direct flights), a day to travel back, and interviews in the middle of the week. She is thrilled and extremely thankful for the interviews, but will have to miss a lot of work.
@texaspg, I couldn’t get your link to work. Looks broken.
I live where you live so I feel your pain re: travel–and yep, interviews can be any day of the week. M thru Th interview days are common. Fridays are rare.
CC is truncating the link for some reason–try going to this page–https://meded.ucsd.edu/index.cfm/asa/admissions/home/
the link to the .pdf w/ stats is about halfway down the page
@icuinNm Just click the link and in the browser go and append (2).pdf (since that is not hyperlinked). It worked and read that file.
Agree, interviews going to disrupt the semester classes. Most schools offer M or F (to minimize) but some schools has middle of the week. Some schools even offering on Sat.day (UT SW@Dallas). Some whatever the dates they give and very few allow you to choose the date. It varies school to school.
It seems like the link does not like (2). I see that if I remove that the link is highlighted and actually works. However,it might be an older version of the file.
Congratulations to your daughter @icuinNm Are they offering only middle of the week dates? Some schools offer dates all week long and others only on specific days.
In Texas, tIhey have specific days for each school because they don’t want them to overlap with others in Texas but since there are only 5 days and and 8 or 9 schools, this rule does not always work out. I remember D had interview on Monday in San Antonio, Friday in Galveston, Saturday in UTSW Dallas (they have 2 day visit - Friday to tour and Saturday interview), one of the weekdays in A&M and UT Houston and Friday at Baylor. They added Austin and Rio Grande since and opening Universtiy of Houston for 2020.
@WayOutWestMom Yes, you know the drill. What we have to travel to get to a large city in a neighboring state is what someone in other parts of the country would travel to get through 3 or 4 states. One interview is over 1000 miles away and another one is 2000 miles away with limited flights and long layovers. The other interview is local and on a Friday. Yay for that!
@texaspg, Thanks! One interview is on a Tuesday/Wednesday and another one only had Wednesday dates. At least the Tuesday flights are less expensive. D graduated in May so at least she isn’t missing classes. But she has a lot of time crunchy things to do with her research work. Oh well!!
@icuinNm If you think travel for med school interviews is a challenge, wait until your D applies to residency programs. Some specialties require both an intern year followed by specialty training requiring separate interviews for both their specialty and intern year programs, and the specialty and intern programs can be in different locations/cities or states.
@Jugulator20 It sure is an expensive process and seems like it never ends, but at least it’s for a good cause.
D is contributing what she can, but she also has to cover her own expenses like rent, food, gas, etc. DH and I have been saving credit card airline points for a few years, but those points go quickly with long distance flights and traveling a week or two out from the booking date. I’m thankful that D graduated from college debt-free, so at least she doesn’t have undergrad loans to add to the expenses.
Jugulator’s comment on residency travel is right on. Two kiddos flying out to short notice on multi-city interview trips all over the US. Oy! Airfare, meals, lodging, car rentals/Ubers… it adds up fast. D1 actually had a 3 interviews-in-one-week trip where she literally flew cross country TWICE in the same week before flying back home. D2, who attended 14 residency interviews, probably spent ~$10,000 on residency interview travel.
Fortunately there are special residency travel loans for MS4s.
Relocating for residency is also expensive, esp since new grads aren’t paid until they’ve completed an [usually unpaid] mandatory 1-2 week long orientation and then 2-4 weeks of work before they ever see a paycheck. D2 ended up needing to borrow money from me to pay her second month’s rent because her program pays monthly.
@WayOutWestMom
The only residency related travel and relocation loans I was aware started with an application to the bank of mom and dad; the kind of loans with generous repayment terms: no interest, repayment optional at the borrower’s discretion. lol. In retrospect, getting to hood my S and seeing my W all teary eyed on match day and after the graduation ceremony erased S’s loan balances (at least those originating from bank of mom and dad).
All the major student loan lenders (Sallie Mae, Wells Fargo, Discover, PNC, etc) offer residency travel & residency relocation loans.
See: https://studentloanhero.com/featured/3-reasons-residency-relocation-loan/
Additionally, many med schools bump up the COA for MS4 so students can borrow additional funds through federal student loans or the Grad Plus program to pay for residency interview travel.
So very true! My son’s specialty required an internship year as well, so he had a good number of applications and interviews. I think he ended up with 46 interview invites, and actually attended around 29 in all corners of the nation, often with not much notice and no mapping coordination, so would be in Calif one day, Nashville the next, then back to Calif, then the NE, then Washington, then Atlanta, then Rochester, back to NE, and on and on.
For residency interviews, the applicant is often expected to attend a dinner the night before the interview. All of this extends the time needed to be there, hotels, car rentals, etc.
And, yes, often the internship is in a different city and state than the residency program, so requiring a move one year, and then another move the next. Ugh. At least now son is a PGY2 so will be in one location for a few years…
Thanks for the congrats!
The amount of travel for residency interviews sounds like it is a lot more expensive! I can’t even fathom someone going to 29 interviews! I guess that the expenses of applying to med school is a smaller toned-down version of what comes later when applying to residencies. D just got engaged, so residency applications will be on her and her (then) husband! They can start saving once they are settled and D starts school, assuming she gets accepted somewhere. So this is going to be a busy year now that wedding plans are being added to the mix!
D received another interview invite this week at one of her top choices! DH and I are so happy for her! While it will take a day of flying to get there, the interview is on a Friday this time which helps her not have to miss as much work and pay.
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Another II for D, this time at a top 10 school! And after more than 2 years of research, D’s work is finally published. Her research is involved with long-term studies, so she wasn’t expecting a publication out of it when she first started. Of course she’s thrilled that it happened!
D received her first acceptance this morning! She is very happy and quite relieved to know that she won’t have to go through this process again! She has one scheduled interview left to attend and won’t be hearing back from the other schools until spring with the exception of one school.
When should she fill out a FAFSA?
She can wait until April to fill out her FAFSA.
Each school has its own process for FA. Some will require a parent & student NeedsAccess in addition to FAFSA; some will require both a parental FAFSA and a student FAFSA for institutional aid.
NeedsAccess will use 2017 tax info
@icuinNm Congratulations to your D!