Again, no apology needed or desired. Are you or your spouse MDs? Or did your son get into lots of medical volunteer opportunities? My child wants to know what went wrong. It kills me to go through a month of effort and get absolutely ZERO out of the experience, and that is what it is. You cannot sugar coat it otherwise. Knowing why we lost would be a great help to move on to other things. Not giving us any feedback is pure evil We invested hundreds of hours and spent thousands of dollars and all we got was a rude 30 second phone call.
I donât know your childâs stats, but my guess wasnât that he went wrong. I think the decision must have been so hard. It could have come down to a GPA or a test score if interviews went well! I donât know how they distinguish! I just know from the young people I saw, the committee had their hands full
With those decisions!
Thank you, that tells me all I need to know. I really appreciate the sharing and believe me it really helps.
For the future benefit of others, it seems in BS/MD programs such as UAB EMSAP, having a lot of medical type experience, such as doctor shadowing, volunteer work at hospitals, and medical research at local schools / universities, is what you need to get into these programs. I assumed BS/MD staff would have screened candidates based on everything in the application before the interviews, then just seen how the kids did in the interviews as to their interest in medicine and ability to communicate effectively, but apparently kids must have rather extensive experience in medicine. I suppose the rationale is that some kids who are really bright decide the best thing in life is to be a doctor, but then run into the real world scenarios and decide to drop out of programs like this, leaving the program hanging, which I see is already the situation at UAB based on the number of kids in the junior and senior classes. We could have gotten that had we known a year or more in advance, but we donât have any family members in medicine or anyone who could have told us. I guess high school guidance counselors just donât know their students well enough to tell kids that they need to get some experience working in medical settings to be competitive. Nothing in life is ultimately fair.
@FutureMDParent I agree what you said about experience in Research. That might be the reason I didnât get in. If so, I wished that they havenât dragged me there and made me falling love with the program. I have zero research, I just donât have the connection with professors, like most of people applying BS/MD program. I have a lot of shadowing hours with doctors. I have perfect testing score (not super score), 4.0 GAP and 9 AP at the end of Junior (National AP scholar if you want to calculate weighted). If UAB focuses too much on medical experience instead of academic ability, that is why this program has such low retention rate due to unable to maintain 3.5 GPA.
Most medical schools work in a specific way - especially State schools.
They set up a set of criteria
They have a set of points for the criteria they set up
They score the applicants against the criteria
Then they call those who scored above a certain score for an interview - you have to remember they are calling a specific number for a specific number of slots - so an applicant should know if they have a one in 2 or one in 10 shot when they attend an interview.
However, your baseline score still remains when you attend the interview. So the interview score is added to that baseline score and if you were 20 out of 40 for 10 seats before your interview, you need to make up a lot of ground in the interview to make it to 10 or whatever the number of seats are. So it all depends on the weight given to the interview.
When undergrads attend medical school interviews, there is a well known formula people use called LizzyM score. This score with the old MCAT used to be 10 x GPA + MCAT score and most colleges have an average score for their admittees. So it is easy to know where you stand when you apply to specific schools. It is not as simple for combined admissions since there are so few seats available and different schools have different processes for their selection. However, since the process followed is usually based on scoring, I agree that the scoring might be skewed to favor a specific type of candidate, whether is a lot of medical volunteer hours or lot of research/awards for research. Different schools favor different attributes (HPME is known to favor a lot of research experience and most likely medical family background). Knowing what type of kids are getting in more easily about 3 years in advance helps prepare a kid interested in BS/MD. It also helps future applicants to read old threads of the admitted students to see what they think got them in.
I urge the current applicants to help future applicants by updating the results thread when they are done with their cycle. I will set up a thread for 2016.
@FutureMDParent I donât know if your D showed you a statistic table in her folder. EMSAP give 25% in-state applicants a chance for interview and 8.3% out-of-state applicants for interview this year. Among those, they will pick six from in-state applicants and four from out of state applicants. Basically, your D compete against in-state students only, not out of state students. Also if I got in, I would pay outstate tuition for 8 years, double of what in-state students would pay. Here is your tax money made a difference.
@Mocha16, did you apply for Pitt GAP? The reality is most if not all (high rank medical schools) BS(A)/MD program favors applicants with research experience (shadowing doctors for sure). This is unfavorable (unfair?) for high schools in rural area, but the argument is why not in summer (there are some summer research programs for high school students but usually also selective in most places). Do your best, hope the best and prepare the worst. If you are highly interested in medicine and persistently pursue it, you will be an excellent physician eventually.
Drexel/Drexel is planning to release BSMD interview selection list by the end of this week. That is the response from med school today.
Texas has a program specific to rural area students and so do a few other states which want to promote programs where they want to train students from rural areas who are willing to go back to their native area to practice.
Many of the BS/MD programs are tiny when compared to 24 or 25K MD/DOs US graduates each year. Many of them have their own goals which really have no bearing on actually preparing a student to be doctor. Many of the programs are tied to attracting some top students to their school.
Examples
Would a top student pick UAB over other schools if there was no EMSAP?
Would a top student pick UT-Dallas without UT-PACT? (D got an almost full scholarship but we are moving on without UT-PACT)
Would a top student pick Baylor without Baylor/Baylor?
Would a top student pick Pitt without GAP? (D got a full ride but ⊠you get the picture).
@J2H239 Yes. Do you think that I have any hope for GAP without research and hospital volunteer started junior years. I didnât want to be a doctor until the end of the sophomore year even though my dad is a doctor. I play sports(on varsity for four years) and have to retry out every year if I am away for the summer, I wonât make the varsity team in the fall.
Does anyone know how PPSP weights the research? I am current on their waitlist for the interview, if there is no hope, I probably wonât waste my time to go to the interview.
@texaspg, Pitt GAP is highly competitive and Pitt is ideal for pre-medicine. Which kind of full ride your D got? Both SLS and CS are ongoingâŠ
@Mocha16, Pitt GAP needs a 3.75 GPA to keep your spot. You worry the 3.5 GPA in UAB, how about Pitt GAP?
@J2H239 I am not worrying about GPA (3.5 is very reasonable), I was saying UAB should give the spots for the kids that can keep the up the GPA without research experience because the research experience can gain in college.
@Mocha16 Would you please clarify your post " I am current on their waitlist for the interview"? Did Pitt GAP sent email notification or updated your portal for the interview. From last year, thought it will come only in Mid feb. Thanks.
hello everyone
For those who got Penn State Jeff interview set in Feb 2016, congrats
it is time to plan
Usually 85 are interviewed for 45-50 offers
so odds are good
Think and show your self
Explain why me?
Why do i want to be a MD this early in my life
What are my strength and weakness
Please explain your medical experience
Penn state in University PArk in heartland of PA while Jeff is in downtown 9th Chestnut street , Center City Philly
You will live there and ask yourself "is this what i want?
The fear is people says yes and then drop out two three years later
@GoldenRock I said âDoes anyone know how PPSP weights the research? I am current on their waitlist for the interview, if there is no hope, I probably wonât waste my time to go to the interview.â This is for Case Western BS/MD.
@Mocha16 Iâm not sure but I donât have any significant research and I got an interview. I would think that they wouldâve weeded me out if research was THAT important. I have more non-medically related extracurriculars than I do medically-related experiences.
@eclucas98 I thought the same thing (finally a school will see my academic potential instead of focus research) before I went to UAB for the interview. I probably wonât have gone if I have known better. I probably was their backup before the interview. In case, those kids had research experience didnât work out for UAB.
@Mocha16 @eclucas98, it seems that the qualities of highly competitive peers in the application pool will directly affect a specific applicantâs chance (interview or final admittance). For example, in the year of 2014-2015 of Pitt GAP in medicine:
https://oafa.pitt.edu/who-fits-at-pitt/guaranteed-admissions-programs/medicine-gap/
Invited: 411; Applied: 258; Interviewed: 46; Admitted: 11.
I believe the last 11 applicants should be all exceptional.
Drexel/Drexel- Rejected.