Yeah, the wife of my former major professor for my Ph.D. was the girl who survived the attack and lived to testify. She is in her 40’s now and still has serious scars. Nice lady, though.
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I’m a graduate of UF and Q’s assesment for nontrads is right on point although they have some of the best family housing I’ve ever seen. One correction though, is that Ted Bundy murdered the ladies of that OTHER major Florida school (FSWho?) and that 1 guy was killed also by Danny Rolling. I was living there at the time, and can tell you that it was a pretty frightening experience.
My bad. You’re right, it was Danny Rolling who was the UF serial killer. I was a HS student at the time, and it was pretty scary. Bundy was executed here in FL the year before.
For those of you still on the interview trial - best of luck & success to you. It is getting very late & interviews are winding down.
If you were admitted - AWESOME & CONGRATS!
If you still sit on a waiting list - I wish you the best (talk to Dr. Renard)
If you did not get in, no better time than the present to start buffing your application for next time. Matter of fact, some - not all - programs will be willing to sit down or chat on the phone with you to provide a detailed assessment of your application’s strengths & weaknesses. If one of the programs that rejected you offer this - TAKE THEM UP ON IT!
While I agree with everything OMD said, I would like to offer hope for those of you still waiting-- I was an August MCAT taker, and in 2002 AMCAS was a mess, so I didn’t get any interviews until March and April-- and I still got in several places. In fact I got an interview invite to KCOM in JUNE-- turned it down because by then I had already made my decision on where to go, and was quite happy with my choice. So don’t give up hope and keep checking your email religiously (I almost missed the interview where I ended up going because I didn’t check the website where you could track your application, and so it wasn’t until the snail mail invite got to me that I knew I had an interview).
Good luck.
I am about halfway done posting these, but now I will have some time to write a few more posts, and I’ll try to hurry up and finish.
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I have mixed feelings about the University of Miami. It’s a great clinical school, and if you want to do EM, I definitely recommend checking it out. There is a satellite campus up in Boca (FAU), and I really loved it. The FAU campus is the main reason why I’m still considering the school.
Interview Day: U Miami was definitely an interesting experience. As I alluded in a previous post, I had a bit of an unpleasant confrontation while I was there. Although no harm was done, it definitely gave me a scare, and there was a time when I thought I was going to have to pepper spray the guy. Basically, he wanted money from me, and when I told him I didn’t have any, he got belligerent. So I started screaming back at him right there in the middle of the street, and telling him to stay the h away from me, and then he finally backed down and left me alone. The thing that scared me the most was that I could see some friends of his coming down the street a block away, and I didn’t want to wait until they outnumbered me three to one! Anyway, he finally ran off, and I could hear him shouting to his friends that this crazy b (meaning me!) had told him to leave her alone. It’s kind of funny now, but it was not the greatest first experience to have at a school. So I will start by warning you that Jackson Memorial Hospital is NOT in a great area of town. 
After that, things only got somewhat better. I was still getting over a cold on top of everything else, and so after shouting at this guy I had pretty much lost my voice. They gave us some presentations about the Miami program, and then we were supposed to have a tour. However, our tour guide stood us up, and so after we waited around for 15 or 20 minutes, the admissions staff had another girl who just happened to be hanging out in the office give us the tour instead. This girl had never given a tour before, which was bad enough, but the worst part IMO was that she was bragging about how much the students partied and how little they studied. She claimed that she had never read a textbook even once the whole time she’d been there, but (hah hah) she had still passed the boards. I didn’t find what she said to be very funny, but maybe that’s just me, and I was also suffering because I’d left my cough drops back in the admissions office.
Next, we had lunch with students. There are a lot of older students at Miami, which was great. What upset me though was that there were no students from the FAU campus to answer questions, and not only that, the Miami campus students were totally bashing the FAU campus and telling us that we shouldn’t go there. When I asked why, they said stuff like, “oh, we heard that the teachers aren’t as good,” or, “That’s where the people who couldn’t get into the main campus go.” But when I pressed them further, they admitted that they hadn’t ever even seen the FAU campus themselves. They were just repeating hearsay. Again, I thought that this second-hand negativity was not only unhelpful, but also a real turn-off. At this point, I was actually considering going home without bothering to stay for the interview, but since I was there already, I did stay.
The interview itself was also fairly unpleasant. The interviewer seemed to have a rote list of questions that he asked, and that had little to do with getting to know me or with my application. (Unlike USF, Miami is open-file, so he had read my app.) He asked me a bunch of health care ethics questions, like, “What would you do if your neighbor’s 13-year-old daughter came to you for an abortion?” The funny part of this whole thing is that I had to whisper b/c I had totally lost my voice by then, so he’d ask a question, and then he’d be leaning in over the table to hear my whispered response. It must have seemed very dramatic. lol.
Anyway, after this whole day, I had pretty much written Miami off my list. It was by far the worst interview I had been on, and I thought that there was no way that I’d go there. The following day, I decided to drive up to the FAU campus to see it for myself and to meet some students. This turned out to be a very good decision, because the FAU campus is fantastic. If any of you are applying to Miami, I highly recommend that you check it out. The facilities are brand new and really nice. Every student gets his/her own cubicle in the “nerdery,” and it’s a smaller, more intimate setting compared to Jackson. I liked it there so much that it completely changed my mind about the school.
Non-trad considerations: I would rate Miami as being extremely non-trad friendly. There are a lot of non-trads who attend, and they will allow you to apply as an independent for institutional aid if you are over age 30. If you attend the Miami campus and you have a family, you will have to live pretty far away and drive in because of the neighborhood safety issue. Some of the older students I met at the Miami campus told me that they live all the way up in Ft. Lauderdale and drive the 30 miles each way, but most of the students seem to pick other areas of Dade county.
Outcome: accepted, with nearly full scholarship. I was really shocked, because after that disaster of an interview day, I wasn’t sure that I’d even get accepted. They sent an email followed by a snail mail letter for both the acceptance and the scholarship. The scholarship was awarded about three or four weeks after I was accepted. If you are a Floridian who has also been accepted to one of the FL state schools, they may give you a partial scholarship so that Miami would cost the same as one of the state schools. I know several people who have received one of those.
Wash U has a tremendously impressive campus, and it’s an amazing research powerhouse. They did a large portion of the Human Genome Project here. The students are extremely bright and accomplished. Wash U is a very aggressive school in terms of recruiting, too; if they want you, they will go after you.
Interview Day: I had a great interview day at Wash U. They give you dinner the night before, a free night’s stay in the dorm, breakfast the morning of the interview, and a fantastic lunch. It’s worth attending the interview for the food alone. 
I had already seen most of the campus wandering around on my own, so the tours weren’t the most exciting at that point. My interviewer was an emeritus physician and we really hit it off. He told me that he’d recommend me to the committee, but he wasn’t sure how they would feel about my lack of undergrad grades. So I figured, ok, I’ll probably get waitlisted. I also met with a researcher with whom I’d like to work if I were to go there.
Non-trad considerations: Wash U is not a very non-trad friendly school in any way. First of all, stats are tremendously important here. My interviewer basically told me that my MCAT score was one of the main reasons that the school was interested in me, along with my research background. I have told some of you privately about this: I don’t hold it against Wash U for being so stat-driven; in fact, I have to respect them for their relative transparency compared to most other schools. But I’m not sure that I agree with them emphasizing stats that much. Second, the class is very young. When I say “very young,” I mean, very, very VERY young. There are no MSIs in their 30s at all, as far as I can tell. I didn’t feel like the school was hostile toward students over age 30, but there just aren’t any there. Third, non-trads are not considered to be independent for financial aid purposes, even if you’re over age 30. Major disadvantage in my book. Fourth, the atmosphere of the school can only be described as INTENSE. I don’t think it’s a good social atmosphere for non-trads (well, for me anyway ), although there’s not a doubt in my mind that the education and training and research there are all superb. They do have P/F grading the first year, which is a blessing for all involved IMO. Also, the area around the campus is nice; the undergrad campus is nearby, and there is a really nice park adjacent to the school.
Outcome: accepted. Another one that was totally unexpected; like I said, I thought I’d be waitlisted for sure. I received an express mail packet within a few weeks of my interview, followed by a card from my interviewer.
Q of Qimica,
you are impressive! You collect acceptances the way some people collect postage stamps. I can’t remember–did you actually settle on one of these schools yet?
The cool part is that you have applied to so many disparate schools that you have an interesting story to tell about each visit.
I went to Wash U as an undergrad (and I think my father interned at Barnes, in fact) and I have fond memories of the campus, the people, and the city. Just north and east of Wash U main campus is what used to be a “dangerous” neighborhood; not sure if it’s still that way, but people knew not to go in the park after dark especially on that side. I think the hospital complex is not in a safe area but again, it’s been 20+ years so perhaps things have changed. I used to bike home through the park from Sunshine Inn restaurant in the central west end where I washed dishes until past midnight. I was fairly intrepid in those days.
lol, most of my rejections were pre-interview, so that’s why it seems like I’m getting in everywhere. I applied to A LOT of schools because of my unusual undergrad background. Most schools have accepted me if I make it as far as the interview stage, although so far I have one post-interview rejection that I’ll post about soon, and one waitlist that I already posted. I have not yet heard back from three schools.
I suppose I should explain to everyone that I am applying with no undergrad GPA, grades, or credit hours from my major undergrad institution. I did take all of the pre-reqs, but P/F and all 10+ years ago. Since then, I have earned my MS, and I’m now getting ready to graduate with my PhD, both in organic chem. (I defend in three weeks. ) I am a re-applicant for the fourth time (last time I applied was in 1997). I would say that 2003 was the turnaround year for me. I started getting serious about med school, and decided to re-take the MCAT and apply again, one last time. The other three attempts I made were all kind of half-hearted, and I think that the med schools were right not to admit me. I would say that this change in attitude made a huge difference in terms of getting admitted. I also earned straight As in my PhD program and did extremely well on the MCAT, both of which have been instrumental in getting some doors opened for me that were slammed in my face previously. That being said, having excellent stats will still not guarantee you an interview or even a secondary, much less an acceptance. I can’t stress enough how important it is to have a strong overall package. My advice to those of you who are getting ready to apply now is to make everything about your app as stellar as you can, including your grades, your MCAT, your ECs, your LORs, your interviews, and your essays. If you are counting on one good thing to “save” an otherwise uncompetitive app, you are liable to drown.
I will post the rest of my interviews soon. In the interest of balance, I’ll post the post-interview rejection next.
Duke is another school that is very research-oriented. In fact, all students are required to spend a year engaged in some kind of scholarly project during med school. They have an unusual curriculum, where you complete one year of basic sciences, then one year of research, and then two years of clinical rotations and electives. They do two things to make this schedule possible: first, the MSI year is longer than at many other schools (11 months versus 9 months), and second, some of the basic sciences like radiology are taught during the clinical years. It is a very different, unique program, and if you have a weak academic or science record, you can expect them to ask you about this because of the intense nature of their curriculum.
Interview Day: It starts early (don’t they all?), and we had an orientation, followed by a tour. There are two interviews. Some people get one academic interview and one ethics interview (designated as alpha and beta respectively), but I did not notice a difference between the questions I got asked at one interview versus the other. One of my interviewers was a student and the other was an MD. They give you a frisbee that says, “I interviewed at Duke!” in your interview packet, which definitely wins for being the oddest momento I received at any interview.
Non-trad Considerations: About the same as for Wash U. The class is very young, very bright, and very intense. The few non-trads that they take tend to be in their mid to late 20s and tend to be people who have either gone to grad school or have worked in research before applying to med school. The school will not consider you independent for institutional aid regardless of your age. I felt that stats and academic performance were extremely important considerations here, and this is understandable and probably beneficial due to the condensed nature of the curriculum. If you come in with a PhD, they will actually allow you to petition to skip your second year and go straight to the clinics after MSI, which would permit you to finish medical school in three years instead of four. The city of Durham is small and seems family-friendly, although I was told that there are some areas that are not very good. COL is relatively cheap compared to many of the other places I’ve visted.
Outcome: rejected, by snail mail. I attribute this to the fact that my pre-reqs were all 10+ years old, and the school explicitly requires them to be less than 7 years old. I did ask them to waive this requirement in my case, but they did not guarantee anything, and evidently they decided that the requirement should not be waived. Those of you who are taking your pre-reqs now will not run into this problem, but you should make sure to maintain excellent grades and score well on the MCAT to be competitive here.
UAB is an amazing school, and a fantastic deal if you’re an AL resident. (Even if you’re not, it’s still a pretty good deal, but it will be hard for you to get in; they don’t take many OOS residents. It helps if you have strong ties to the state of AL.) The school has dual missions in primary care and biomedical research, so definitely tell them if either of those is your career goal. The campus is building up like a cancer in the south part of the city; since I was there last in 2001, they literally added an entire SQUARE BLOCK to the hospital, built a new biomedical research bldg and are breaking ground on another one, and built a fantastic rec center with a rock climbing wall, and, I kid you not, a RIVER in it. If you visit, don’t leave without seeing the rec center! It’s conveniently located right across the street from the med school.
Interview Day: Wow, UAB has a ton of interviews. I had four of them. If you’re a minority or an MSTP applicant, you’ll have even more. The interviews were all with faculty. One thing that I thought was interesting (and in a bad way) is that we did not get to interact with many students. Only two of them came to lunch and then took us on our tour. But the facilities are nice, especially the new medical school building, and they’ve even renovated the old one. The anatomy labs remain as crappy as ever, down in the basement of the old building.
Non-trad considerations: All I can say is that UAB is really a mixed bag here. On the one hand, they take several non-trads, and I felt that the administration was open to me as an older student. They will also permit a non-trad to apply for institutional financial aid as an independent if you are over age 30. On the other hand, they have a grading system and scholarship awarding methodology here that can only be described as cutthroat and ruthless. Basically, everything depends on your class rank. You may have the scholarship one year, and you may make straight As all year, but if you drop a rank or two, you may not have the scholarship any more the following year. Yikes. In addition, the grades are curved, which means that some people have to fail. Double yikes. The class is organized into quartiles, and so naturally there is quite a bit of nastiness going on at the top as people jockey to try to get into the top quartile. This grading system is a dealbreaker for me, which is too bad, because I really liked the school otherwise. I even like the city of Birmingham.
Outcome: accepted. They sent an email, followed by a snail mail. I’m thinking I will probably re-apply here for residency, but this is definitely not the right med school for me.
Pitt was a late addition to my list; I didn’t get my AMCAS in here until early Nov. This was because somehow I overlooked them in my initial choices of schools last June. The MSAR does say that they have a mission of producing physician scientists, but I did not find out about their fantastic training programs for this until I was at Wash U interviewing and overheard some of the other applicants discussing how much they liked Pitt. The program I’m interested in is called the Clinical Scientist Training Program. It can be four or five years, and its goal is to train students to conduct clinical trials. There is an analogous program for basic science (BSTP). You’ll have to go to Pitt’s website to read about them, though; the MSAR spread doesn’t mention these programs at all. Students in these programs can receive full-tuition scholarships.
Interview Day: If you read the feedback on SDN, there are several people who complained about how the med school is at the top of a big hill. It is at the top of a big hill, but it isn’t all that big of a deal if you’re in a modicum of good shape. One thing that really amazed me is that inside the medical school building, there are ESCALATORS. And let me tell you, those things move, FAST. You’d better not be napping when you ride them. 
I had an interview with a student, who was very sweet, and then with an MD. He wasn’t so sweet, and he kind of grilled me a bit. Not that he was unpleasant, but it was definitely a real interview. We had several really funny exchanges. One was when he asked me about my volunteering. I was telling him about the MCAT subforum on SDN, and he asked why I didn’t charge people to answer their MCAT questions. So I told him that if I charged people, it wouldn’t be volunteering any more, would it??? (He kept saying about how I could make a lot of money; it never seemed to occur to him that maybe I just LIKE doing it. lol.) He also asked me to tell him about my undergrad honors research from over ten years ago, and luckily I still remembered enough about it to describe it. Out of 17 interviews attended, this was the only one where that ever happened. All in all not a bad interview, but it was hard to read him and I didn’t feel like I established a rapport with him like I did with many of my other interviewers.
Nontrad Considerations: Pitt is a great school for non-trads, one of the best I’ve seen. There are a lot of non-trads who attend the school, and in fact, they even have an “Old Farts Club” for students who are over age 30. (The student who was telling me about this also added that the F doesn’t really stand for “farts.” ). The school will permit students over age 30 to apply as independents for institutional aid. The area that the school is in seems to be pretty nice and safe. I walked around quite a bit and had no problems. Later, I found out that Pitt owns most of the buildings in the area. I really liked this school, and highly recommend it to other non-trads.
Outcome: Accepted. I actually found out because they sent me an email to remind me to fill out my financial aid form. I thought that was weird, seeing that they hadn’t officially accepted me at that point. But then my student interviewer emailed me the following day to say I was accepted, and I got a letter by snail mail about a week later. I’m still waiting to find out whether I’ll get admitted to the CSTP. Unfortunately, since I applied and interviewed so late, I am on the waiting list for the program.