I actually had an hour long meeting with an admission's person at MSU-COM and she was super nice. She explained the entire process to me, including why they did away with interviewing people. She said that they learned that it was really easy for people to fake their way through an interview and come across however they wanted to come across as. They changed and updated their LOR forms to be more inclusive and in depth because they feel that they can more accurately learn about a person from good LOR than a short interview. Another reason stated was that in an interview with that is 3-on-1, all three people could come out with a different impression of the person, and that impression could be different than the LORs.
As for admissions, they have an algorithm that they follow. If you meet the minimum MCAT and GPA you get a secondary application. Once the whole application is complete, they put all of your stuff into the algorithm and the top 25% EACH WEEK go to comittee. They also stated that as a reason why to apply early, because you might not be in a top 20% score until October or November b/c traditionally the 4.0's and upper 30 MCAT scores come in first.
The algorithm contains 4 sections that are weighted in different ways. She did say that they are about equal, but there are some variations. The four areas are GPA, MCAT, Volunteer hours, and---okay, completely blanking on the 4th. Then once in comittee, LOR and Personal Statements are investigated and end up being how they pick the ones to admit each week.
I don't know/remember how many are picked each week, but I think she implied that everyone or no one could be picked. Also, as long as you are in the top 25%, you will go to committee each week, unless you a chosen to go into a "pre-hold" group, which means that you will not be competing anymore with people who have really high GPA or MCAT and will be compared to people with about the same GPA and MCAT scores as you.
She did tell me that they have the most agressive admissions schedule in the country, and have a goal of knowing who will be attending by Jan of 2008 (or at least about 85% b/c they know that some will decline or change for a first choice school between Jan and June).
I hope this all helps. And for the being nice to the people in the office...it's really not that hard b/c they are super nice and willing to work with people to
help as much as possible.