<p>@IMGDAD, I heard that the salary is not very attractive who are interested in academia after medical school. Is it true?</p>
<p>@starlight27 - sorry to hear about your Stony Brook rejection. Does it say that your name was not forwarded to the med school or does it say that med school is not able to invite you for interview? Also, was any message posted on their web portal before or at the same time as the letter was mailed? </p>
<p>@MedAspirant, you choose academia not for the money but for the interest. I have been reassuring my kids who want to pursue a career in academic medicine that they should just do what they are interested in doing and should not be deterred by the lower salaries. Even with a lower salary, compared to those in private practice, you will still be making a lot lot lot lot more than the average household income in this country! I have been in private practice but will go back to academia this summer, even though I will be making about 40% of what I have been used to make. Despite this, I am looking forward to going back to academia where I can do research and still practice medicine. So, at your stage, you should concentrate on what you like to do rather than what pays better.</p>
<p>@HickoryDoc-- It’s all through snail mail. There’s no change to my portal. I was accepted to the Honors College but not the Scholars for Medicine. It says, “We are delighted to invite you to become a member of the Honor’s College’s Class of 2018! While we are unable to offer you a seat in Scholars for Medicine…” Last year people were admitted to the Honors College and notified in that same letter that their apps were forwarded to the medical school, and later notified of an interview. Results came a few days after interview by FedEx. </p>
<p>@starlight27 - thanks for the explanation - I just looked up and SBU website says:</p>
<p>“Applicants to all Scholars for Medicine tracks are notified in March whether they have been recommended for review by the School of Medicine Admissions Committee. If recommended for review, applicants are then notified within a couple of weeks as to whether they will be offered an interview. Final decisions are typically made prior to April 1.”</p>
<p>So what you are saying makes total sense</p>
<p>@starlight27, same here :(</p>
<p>Does anyone know how many applicants are forwarded to the medical school for Stony Brook? </p>
<p>@AspireMedicDad I was rejected from the NJIT+NJMS program and was offered to apply to the SGU program at around feb 14th … I still haven’t heard back… do you think that means I am rejected or is there still hope?</p>
<p>@IMGDAD, I just read your posting that said PACT prefers students who are interested in practicing physician than who are interested in research. Is it true? I told one of the UTD interviewer that I am interested in research.I am now worried that it might have a negative impact on my admission.</p>
<h1>MedAspirant, I said that because when I took my daughter to visit the Director of the Program at UTD for admission in the Fall of 2013, she specifically gave us the impression that the program was looking for students who were interested in practicing medicine and not someone who wanted to do research.</h1>
<p>No, it seems like wrong perception last year. UTSW director in interview day (not UTD director) told that even the MD/PhD program is open for UT-PACT students w/o restriction. He well recognized that the UT-PACT applicants had a extremely good stats.</p>
<p>@starlight27
Sorry about Stonybrook, but remember Penn State/Jefferson! And others I’m sure…You’ll do great anywhere.</p>
<p>@Dad2013, you are correct. If I were the program director for the program, especially knowing how research-orientated UTSW is and research determines a large part of medical school ranking, I would want to maximize the ability of the admitted students and rather than admitting students who are only interested in being practicing physicians (I would like to add that there is NOTHING WRONG with being a practicing physician). That was why both my daughter and I were rather shocked when the Program Director at UTD gave us the impression that she was not looking for students who specifically wanted to do research.</p>
<p>But what I found was that the compressed 3-year education at UTD cannot give full and in-depth research opportunity to the students. Research can be done in short 2nd half of summers only, which may not be attractive to UTSW professors.</p>
<p>@Dad2013, I suspect that the Program Director on the UTD side was just going by the purpose of why the PACT program was initially set up. It was to address a need for more physicians and also to reduce the cost of medical education to encourage more students to go into medicine. See this list:</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.utdallas.edu/president/viewpoint/2013/01/”>https://www.utdallas.edu/president/viewpoint/2013/01/</a></p>
<p>dad2013 - so they take away your seat if you ask for recommendations to apply elsewhere? TTU used to cancel the admission if someone took the MCAT.</p>
<p>@texaspg - This is what they said - “You lose the spot if you apply to other medical schools. However we are happy to give you recommendation letters”</p>
<p>Sounds a bit more like an honor system. Does UTD use committee letters for regular MD applicants? If so it would make sense to have a controlling point as the letters phase.</p>
<p>RPI/AMC trip report</p>
<p>Interview day: Monday 3/10/14
• There were 7 students: 3 for RPI, 2 for Union, 2 for Union/RPI.
• Check in was 8 am on the letter but upon arrival, the schedule stated 8:15 am registration with 8:30 am orientation. Since everyone arrived early the orientation was moved up to 8:15 am.
• Orientation was for students and parents, very informal, in a meeting room, conducted by Maria (sorry didn’t catch her last name), very nice lady. Only slide shown was the AMC map to tell parents where they can go hang out and get food on their own. Mostly her providing information and answering questions.
• Information provided during the orientation session:
o Each program (RPI, Union, Siena) would invite up to 80 students to interview.
o Each program’s goal is to enroll 15. Based on past statistics on the number of acceptances sent versus the number of students eventually enrolling, AMC is planning to send 30 to 40 acceptances for admission to each program.
o They have sent out the first round of acceptances for admission – 15 for each program. However, they have not received any acceptances from the students saying yes they are coming. Maria will be calling each student to get an idea of whether the student is planning to enroll or not. She made the comment that those who already know they are not attending should let AMC know so the slot can be freed up for someone else.
o AMC is not planning on sending “rolling” acceptances after this first round. They are continuing to interview every Monday and Friday with the last interview being March 31. To be fair, they will rank everyone and the last admission committee meeting (always on Wednesdays) will be April 2. If AMC is not able to send the decision by the end of that week it will be the week after at the latest. All the “final” acceptances or rejections (or wait listing) will be sent at the same time.
o Each student is ranked on the whole application not just the interview – the interviewer will score and write a brief summary of the interview. The decision would be accept, reject, or under consideration until all the interviews are done. Then, those that are still under consideration may be put on a wait list. It is rare, but AMC has taken people off the wait list even after May 1, with the agreement of the undergraduate college. One last year, I think I heard Maria said.
o If AMC miscalculates and ends up with more than 15 enrollees in a program, the acceptances would not be revoked. However, that has not happened since Maria has been there. Last year, I think 14 enrolled for Union and 13 for RPI (not 100% sure of the numbers as I don’t have the info package with me right now, but definitely not 15). Information for Siena is not provided as the students interviewing that day were only for RPI or Union.
• At 9 am the director of the combined program (sorry I didn’t catch him name) came in to have a group session with the students, parents were dismissed then. According to my daughter, it was also pretty informal, supposed to be a “getting to know you” session, going around the room asking about the student’s EC and/or research activities. In addition to bench work in a lab, there were descriptions of You Tube business, software applications in health care, etc., which my daughter said were “very cool”.
• The interviews were 30 to 40 minutes, some (my daughter thought only one but she wasn’t sure) interviewers had to interview 2 students. That day, the regular medical school interviews were also going on (they use MMI, 8 stations, 2 minutes to read 8 minutes to respond) so the interviewers were busy and Maria warned that some students would have to wait until their interviewer was free but not to freak out over all the “down time”, it is just an unusually busy day. Each combined program student only gets one interview.
• @IMGDAD – I don’t know if it is the same interviewer your daughter got but one of the students reported being grilled on medical ethics throughout the interview! Some of the rest (including my daughter) reported getting general questions by the interviewer going over the supplemental application and asking for details.
• Logistics if you are staying at the Hilton Garden Inn:
o Parking is free but do get a parking pass from check in you need to display it on the dash.
o It takes 10-15 minutes to walk from the lobby (second floor, same as check in and breakfast) – coming out of the elevators, turn to the right, go to the end and you’ll see the start of the enclosed bridge to AMC. Follow the excellent directions in the interview letter, especially towards the end when you get to the library (we didn’t and got lost but were fine once we backtracked to the library). You don’t need to go outdoors at all.
o If you are running late, it may cut out a couple of minutes if you take the elevator straight to the 1st floor (where you came in after parking), go out the door and cross the road (jaywalk carefully please) to AMC – that is the “pillars” (it will be pretty obvious why) entrance/lobby referred to in the interview letter, the rest of the directions are the same.
• Logistics if you are not staying at the Hilton Garden Inn:
o Maria will give out free parking passes to AMC parking during the orientation session.
• Logistics if you are going to RPI campus tour after a Monday interview:
o It did take a full 20 minutes to get there, what with the interview day finishing at 1:15 pm and having to finish up packing and checking out etc., do give yourself enough time. The first stop of the tour is the Student Union building right across from the RPI Admission Office, so if you are late just go find the tour in there and join them.</p>
<p>Let me know if anyone has additional questions. Also, please correct me (fellow CC folks who attended AMC interviews) if my memory is faulty on some points. </p>
<p>Good luck to everyone!</p>
<p>@SLCMom, glad to hear that your daughter’s interview at AMC went well. When the student only gets one interview with one interviewer, there is always an element of luck and also whether the interviewer takes a liking to you at first sight or not. When my daughter interviewed there last year, the interview started with the interviewer telling me daughter right away that he was NOT going to go through anything in her application and was NOT going to ask her anything about what she has done etc. He then went on for the whole interview asking her about ethics.</p>