Official, Pre-Allo NOT ACCEPTED YET 2017 applicant thread

BU Medical Sciences
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PreMedMissteps said:
Restricted in what way? Applicants would still apply to a variety of publics and privates, SOMs would still issue invites (just like NRMP), then sometime after March, interviewed applicants and SOMs would submit their ranks, and then there would be an April or May Match Day. Any schools with empty seats and any interviewed applicants not matched could enter a SOAP-like week to fill spots.

Privates would still get lots of apps since med school applicants already know that publics have an instate bias, so privates also need to be included in one's list (unlike residencies that don't have any instate preference).
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Without limiting the total number of applications per applicant, this plan would not work.
Alternatively, the schools would need to have access to where the student has applied to effectively manage risk.

Many schools spend most of their time interviewing (and accepting) the same small pool of applicants. We had dozens of candidates holding acceptances at more than a dozen schools on April 30th! It is this redundancy that contributes to much of this mess.
The ability for applicants to negotiate between multiple acceptances is frequently mentioned as a defense for the current system...

Even if all we did was limit the maximum number of applications to the applicants' state public school plus X, we would eliminate most of this madness.
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gyngyn said:
Once the reserve of excess acceptances has been depleted, every student that leaves must be replaced. They can be poached until orientation.
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Wait so what happens if a school under-enrolls by orientation? Say a school with 100 seats only ended up having 50 enrolled by orientation despite giving all offers to waitlisted applicants. What happens?
 
Lawper said:
Wait so what happens if a school under-enrolls by orientation? Say a school with 100 seats only ended up having 50 enrolled by orientation despite giving all offers to waitlisted applicants. What happens?
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That's one reason for all the redundancy!
They need a thick cushion of acceptable candidates between them and their least favorite interviewed applicants.
 
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PreMedMissteps said:
Restricted in what way? Applicants would still apply to a variety of publics and privates, SOMs would still issue invites (just like NRMP), then sometime after March, interviewed applicants and SOMs would submit their ranks, and then there would be an April or May Match Day. Any schools with empty seats and any interviewed applicants not matched could enter a SOAP-like week to fill spots.

Privates would still get lots of apps since med school applicants already know that publics have an instate bias, so privates also need to be included in one's list (unlike residencies that don't have any instate preference).
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gyngyn said:
Without limiting the total number of applications per applicant, this plan would not work.
Alternatively, the schools would need to have access to where the student has applied to effectively manage risk.

Many schools spend most of their time interviewing (and accepting) the same small pool of applicants. We had dozens of candidates holding acceptances at more than a dozen schools on April 30th! It is this redundancy that contributes to much of this mess.
The ability for applicants to negotiate between multiple acceptances is frequently mentioned as a defense for the current system...

Even if all we did was limit the maximum number of applications to the applicants' state public school plus X, we would eliminate most of this madness.
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Do you think the limit would have to be < 30?

M4s can apply to as many residencies as they like. The limit seems to be financial (app, interview calendar, and travel). I would suspect similar limits would keep med school app numbers to about what they currently are - with students applying to about 10-30 SOMs.
 
PreMedMissteps said:
Do you think the limit would have to be < 30?

M4s can apply to as many residencies as they like. The limit seems to be financial (app, interview calendar, and travel). I would suspect similar limits would keep med school app numbers to about what they currently are - with students applying to about 10-30 SOMs.
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The pre-selection that occurs in the Match is entirely different than what we see in medical school.
The interviews at very competitive programs are seriously restricted and scheduled to conflict with competitors. I don't think we are ready for that at the undergrad level.

The current average number of applications is about 15. That would be fine for all but states like CA.
 
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person777 said:
How come that's the case? If a school has movement why does it seems like they keep having movement consistently when you would think after some movement they'd be full again?
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Think about it. Every school accepts more students than they have space for because they anticipate a certain number will choose other schools. If a school has reached the waitlist that means that more students than they anticipated with their surplus number chose other schools. At that point, every time one of their students gets in off a waitlist and decides to go elsewhere, a student on the waitlist will be admitted at a 1:1 ratio. If a school hasn't reached its waitlist yet, that means that they still have not gone through their surplus number, and it takes more students deciding to go elsewhere before they even start accepting off the waitlist.

Source: I'm waitlisted at one of those schools where they are still over their target class size and haven't touched the waitlist, and they've told us to keep our expectations very low.
 
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claritab said:
Think about it. Every school accepts more students than they have space for because they anticipate a certain number will choose other schools. If a school has reached the waitlist that means that more students than they anticipated with their surplus number chose other schools. At that point, every time one of their students gets in off a waitlist and decides to go elsewhere, a student on the waitlist will be admitted at a 1:1 ratio. If a school hasn't reached its waitlist yet, that means that they still have not gone through their surplus number, and it takes more students deciding to go elsewhere before they even start accepting off the waitlist.

Source: I'm waitlisted at one of those schools where they are still over their target class size and haven't touched the waitlist, and they've told us to keep our expectations very low.
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Most* schools accept more students than they have space for... for example FAU only accepts at maximum 64 students (class size) and everyone else is waitlisted. Then the 1:1 procedure ensues. This process leads them to have ~60% of the class being from the waitlist.
 
Does a school get better results if it estimates the yield closely or if it draws many off its wait list


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bbbcccppp said:
Which way gets the school more students higher in the schools preference ranking


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Primarily accepting the largest number of the best candidates that are likely to matriculate (without ultimately exceeding the class size) would achieve this goal.
This means accepting 2 to 3 times the class size, depending on your school and your ability to identify them.
 
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That would have been my guess. I was curious because a poster said that FAU only initially accepts 60 applicants unless I misunderstood.


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bbbcccppp said:
That would have been my guess. I was curious because a poster said that FAU only initially accepts 60 applicants unless I misunderstood.


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That is how their process was explained to me on interview day.
 
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gyngyn said:
Primarily accepting the largest number of the best candidates that are likely to matriculate (without ultimately exceeding the class size) would achieve this goal.
This means accepting 2 to 3 times the class size, depending on your school and your ability to identify them.
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Do adcomms generally get exactly the right number of students to matriculate every year, or is what happened with BU last year actually common?
 
ScottTenorman54 said:
Do adcomms generally get exactly the right number of students to matriculate every year, or is what happened with BU last year actually common?
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Every year at least a few admissions deans make a serious miscalculation.
It's usually their last.
 
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Having just gone through a NRMP match for interventional radiology fellowship, I can tell you what's a downside with the match.

Strong applicant who over interview can seriously hold weaker one's back.

For example, there are 250 IR spots, and a PD usually interview 10 per spot. So 2500 interviews are possible overall.

Let's say that the top 50 out of 250 applicants go nuts and interview at 20 programs each (not a surprising number since some folks get interview days off that doesn't add to vacation days).

Suddenly you have 1000 interview spots taken by just 50 people. HALF of the total interview just went to 20% of the applicants, leaving the 80% of applicants scraping for the rest of 50%.

This match, we have a record number of folks not matching and some great programs not filling, including one top 25 program, which rejected me outright but I've matched at a better program.

The best applicants will always have advantage over the others. Currently they just have more acceptances, but in a match like system they will have even more interviews than you since good applicants overapplying will eat into poor applicant's interview spots.
 
Still waiting on Einstein ! Hope New York schools continue to have movement
 
@DrfluffyMD
The best applicants will always have advantage over the others. Currently they just have more acceptances, but in a match like system they will have even more interviews than you since good applicants overapplying will eat into poor applicant's interview spots.
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Not sure how you're coming to that conclusion. A strong med school applicant already snags a ton of interviews (only limited by time/travel/cost) and that already "eats into" a weaker applicants interview spots.

A strong residency applicant is still going to be limited by time/travel/cost. A relative, who went thru match in a previous year as a strong applicant, said she had to decline many IIs because of limited dates, difficulty getting from one coast to another within 24 hrs, and so forth. Naturally, she gave a priority to the better programs over the "lesser" programs, which really doesn't hurt the weaker applicant since they never really had a chance for getting an II from a top program.

In fact, I would argue that the strong med school applicant still has more limitations than a strong residency applicant due to the "instate bias" that exists for public med schools which does not exist for residency programs.
 
Think about it this way. Say the current system, the guy who will end up at HMS applies to 15 schools.

In the new ERAS like system, everyone applies to 40 schools because it's easier and more centralized.

It really hurts the weaker applicants.
 
I think that comes with the territory of how many spots are available.
For example, when applying to college, there are 10,000+ spots, so you only realistically need to apply to 4-5 universities to get in.
With medical school, that becomes 100-200 spots, so you have to at least apply to double that amount.
Once you hit residency, with perhaps only a handful of spots in many of the non-primary care specialties, you have to apply to even more to compensate.

I think that either system would not correct for these issues. The only difference is that the system is more drawn out for medical school applications.
 
Turning the application process into a system like the match is a terrible idea. As others above have mentioned, anybody with the money will apply to and interview with as many places as they possibly can, regardless of how good their scores are. As it is now, if somebody gets accepted to schools that they like early in the year, they have no impetus to continue interviewing at schools where they wouldn't attend. The paranoia of making this a match-like process would cause the best applicants to interview at every single school out of fear of not matching, hurting everyone with less than stellar scores. Then, you wouldn't even find out if you got into medical school until the very end of the year, making it impossible for people who didn't get in to make plans. Overall, I would be extremely opposed to anything that gives the schools an opportunity to add another layer of opaqueness to the system.
 
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DrfluffyMD said:
In the new ERAS like system, everyone applies to 40 schools because it's easier and more centralized.
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Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but why would it be easier than applying to current method with AMCAS. I'm thinking that SOMs would still issue secondaries and the app costs would still be there. Why would the tippy top student who would only apply to 15 schools suddenly apply to 30? Actually, I think a top applicant applies to more schools anyway simply because of the low yield numbers at top SOMs

What I'm wondering about is a system that is really only similar to Residency Match is that sometime around Feb/March, each applicant would rank his/her schools where he/she interviewed and schools would do the same. Perhaps there might be the option for med schools to reject (not WL) before ranking takes place.
 
the reason that M4s apply to so many residency programs is because most programs have fewer spots. Not like a SOM that is seating 75-200 people
 
PreMedMissteps said:
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but why would it be easier than applying to current method with AMCAS. I'm thinking that SOMs would still issue secondaries and the app costs would still be there. Why would the tippy top student who would only apply to 15 schools suddenly apply to 30? Actually, I think a top applicant applies to more schools anyway simply because of the low yield numbers at top SOMs

What I'm wondering about is a system that is really only similar to Residency Match is that sometime around Feb/March, each applicant would rank his/her schools where he/she interviewed and schools would do the same. Perhaps there might be the option for med schools to reject (not WL) before ranking takes place.
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This is what Texas does through TMDSAS
 
As stressful and drawn out as this process is, I would definitely not want a match process. How would you compare financial aid, which is a major factor in deciding where to go? Schools would have to issue you financial aid packages and scholarships at the interview stage, which just makes no sense.
What about people applying with a SO or other family considerations in mind who need to be able to gauge where they are going over the course of the year so that joint decisions can be made?

What would be nice though, is more standardization of the current process, i.e. apps must be complete by September 1, all interviews must be given out by January 1, all initial decisions (accept, reject or WL) by schools made by April 1, and the waitlist moves from that point.
 
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Pusheen said:
As stressful and drawn out as this process is, I would definitely not want a match process. How would you compare financial aid, which is a major factor in deciding where to go? Schools would have to issue you financial aid packages and scholarships at the interview stage, which just makes no sense.
What about people applying with a SO or other family considerations in mind who need to be able to gauge where they are going over the course of the year so that joint decisions can be made?

What would be nice though, is more standardization of the current process, i.e. apps must be complete by September 1, all interviews must be given out by January 1, all initial decisions (accept, reject or WL) by schools made by April 1, and the waitlist moves from that point.
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Texas also solves one of these issues by having tuition approximately the same accross the board. Roughly 15,000/year instate and double that for out of state. crazy right?

They allow for sending prematch offers up until a certain date, then after that date you rank everywhere you interviewed. If you have a prematch offer you will match there unless you match to a school higher on your list in which you didn't initially prematch. If it falls down your list to your prematch then you will go there. They still have waitlists. But to help that process after a certain date, June 1st I believe, they can only accept Texas residents that are not holding a seat at another Texas school. (This doesn't apply to OOS people on the waitlist, they can still be accepted while holding another offer).

I'm not saying it's a perfect system, or that it would work for the whole country. But I feel like it works pretty great for them.
 
Pusheen said:
As stressful and drawn out as this process is, I would definitely not want a match process. How would you compare financial aid, which is a major factor in deciding where to go? Schools would have to issue you financial aid packages and scholarships at the interview stage, which just makes no sense.
What about people applying with a SO or other family considerations in mind who need to be able to gauge where they are going over the course of the year so that joint decisions can be made?

What would be nice though, is more standardization of the current process, i.e. apps must be complete by September 1, all interviews must be given out by January 1, all initial decisions (accept, reject or WL) by schools made by April 1, and the waitlist moves from that point.
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Very good point about the FA aspect.

As for applying with a SO/family considerations, that is still an issue in the current system. A person applies where they hope things work for those issues, and if only one acceptance, that's where he/she goes.


I like your suggestions with some twists: AMCAS opens April 1, apps can be submitted May 1st, IIs can be issued beginning June 1st, apps be submitted by Aug 1, completed by Sept 30th, first RD acceptances Sept 15th, IIs issued by January 15th (SOMs need time to reissue once some scheduled will cancel), last day to interview Feb 28th, initial decisions by April 1, and then WL moves from that point.
 
I come bearing hopeful news! One of my best friends from college just got into medical school off the waitlist. One interview, one waitlist, one acceptance. I can't say where for anonymity purposes, but hope is alive and well.
 
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bananafish94 said:
I come bearing hopeful news! One of my best friends from college just got into medical school off the waitlist. One interview, one waitlist, one acceptance. I can't say where for anonymity purposes, but hope is alive and well.
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Not your room mate, right? What ever happened to him?
 
To all those on the waitlists, would you recommend any action? Calling or emailing and if so, about what? I've sent in 3 letters of intent to my top school so I think they know my interest level. Thanks for any advice!
 
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