6/20/05 - Submitted to AMCAS (finally). Still not 100% happy with my personal statement but you've got to stop somewhere.
6/23/05 - Processed by AMCAS! Great turnaround time. My app should go out with the first batch released in July, and that's all that matters. Take-home lesson: you really don't have to submit June 1st. :)
8/1/05 - LOR's are the devil's work. That is all.
9/6/05 - I wait 3 months for this fricking LOR and it's one page long. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. But at least it's here... finally.
9/9/05 - First interview down. Come on, the rest of you schools! Email me!
9/13/05 - Well, now that's encouraging. Mayo interview set up for 10/3 -- it's a Monday, which is rather inconvenient, but if I wanted a Friday I was going to have to wait until November, so that was a no-brainer.
9/20/05 - Not that I'm not grateful for the two interviews I've received, but the silence from everyone else is getting to be a little deafening. I suppose I should just be happy that I haven't received a rejection... yet (apparently Stanford, UChicago, & UCSF are starting).
9/25/05 - Hurrah! Yale!
9/28/05 - Oh, 2 interview invites in one week, I'm so happy! I guess patience is a virtue. :) This brings my total number of invites so far to 4. If one has approximately a 25% chance of getting admitted from each interview... well, it still doesn't mean much in this crapshoot process. ;)
10/12/05 - Well, Case Western has finally acknowledged receiving the LOR's that were sent electronically on 9/6, but they have yet to deem my app complete and review it. Sigh. And still no love from the Chicago schools. Waiting, waiting, waiting...
10/19/05 - The drought is over. Interview invite from Rochester! I am waiting to hear from UWisc (hopefully this week!) -- I may decline the Rochester interview due to rapidly dwindling funds (although I think it's a really neat school) if I get an acceptance Real Soon Now.
10/19/05, Part Two - My first acceptance!!! University of Wisconsin, I love you!!!!! No letter came in the mail today, so I bit the bullet and called them with the rationale that I didn't want to spend extra money on airfare for interviews if they could tell me my status and they did!!!! I don't even know how to express how I feel... I have never worked this hard for anything before in my entire life and to know that it was all worth it is the most amazing feeling!!!
10/27/05 - Yale was far, far cooler than I thought it would be. (Probably in part because I got to meet up with a certain SDNer!) I would be really amazingly ecstatic to get in there. And I'm just floored by getting an interview invite to UCSF... there was a snafu with my LOR's and I thought that there was no way. Definitely going to decline the Rochester interview now... I'm hemorrhaging money.
11/7/05 - Yes! The Chicagoland silence has ended! Pritzker!!!! And the best part is that it's withing driving distance and I can stay with family so no hotel costs!!
11/16/05 - OK. As of today, I have heard nothing but the fact that I am complete from Cornell, Loyola, Northwestern FSM, and Stanford. CWRU has had my LOR's for well over a month, the rest of my app including the fee for 3 months, and still have not deemed me reviewed as complete. If I didn't already have an acceptance, this would be pissing me off. As it stands, though, I really don't care, though I find it interesting that medical schools deem this to be an appropriate way to treat applicants. On the plus side, I have yet to actually receive a rejection, though Penn's 'interview decision deferment' is less than encouraging. :(
11/26/05 - Four interviews down; one to go! UCSF was truly amazing and the pros for them are outstanding. I think the school would be a great fit for me. Unfortunately the few cons (cost and distance from my family) are going to be hard to conquer. Ironically my chances are statistically best there: they accept 50% of their interviewees and, once at the interview stage, residency is pretty much eliminated from the equation. And it went better than my Mayo interview and possibly even better then Yale. This has the potential to be a really interesting spring.
11/30/05 - Interview invite from CWRU. Can't set it up until Friday, so I don't know when it will be yet. I'm glad that schools are still giving out interviews!
1/8/06 - Will be withdrawing from CWRU tomorrow. It's an excellent school, but there's a variety of personal reasons that make me think that I'm unlikely to attend if accepted, so I can't see spending the money to go. Hopefully someone else will be happy to get the invite instead. Had the Pritzker interview... all I can say is wow. I have a great feeling about this school, loved it to death. Now if they'll only accept me! It's funny -- I knew better than to try to make any predictions about this process but if you'd told me back in June that I'd be sitting here in January with one acceptance, three post-interview withdrawals, four pending decisions, and no rejections, I would have laughed in your face.
1/20/06 - My first rejection. Stanford. :( I gave up on them so long ago it doesn't even bother me!
2/1/06 - And Cornell comes through with a late invite! I'm going to sit down and assess the financial situation... I suppose I could always use my tax refund to pay for it, though I've got about nine million other places I could put that money.
2/2/06 - Decided to decline the Cornell interview. As much as I would have liked to go, I just can't see spending the money right now, since I consider it pretty unlikely I would choose to attend. I'm really hoping for an acceptance from Pritzker or Mayo... if I get Yale or UCSF, it's going to be an agonizing decision because of the distance (I've got some family things going on).
2/8/06 - PRITZKER!!!! I am so thrilled! I just got back last night from a health care policy conference, which I loved, and I was thinking the whole plane trip back about how interested I am in ploicy and how attractive the dual degree would be at Pritzker with the Harris School. They said they'll be emailing the finaid package... I just hope it will be realistic!
2/14/06 - Happy Valentine's from Northwestern... you're rejected! LOL, at this stage it's certainly not a shock. Of course, you always wonder why... but, whatever. That's just the way it goes.
3/27/06 - My first waitlist... UCSF. And my official Penn rejection. I plan on staying on UCSF's waitlist at least until I hear about Yale's decision. And since I don't think even God, should that entity exist, knows when Yale's decisions are coming out, that might be a little bit. Grrrrr... I would like to know where I'm going to school in the fall!
4/3/06 - Yale waitlist. I've decided to stick on both waitlists at present, since I'm still very up in the air on where I want to go anyway. And so the score now stands: 5 interviews, 2 acceptances, 2 waitlists, 1 rejection. Not bad considering all were top 30 schools. I'll take it. :)
4/17/06 - I finally received Pritzker's finaid package, and it's as good as I could have expected. Essentially they brought the cost of Pritzker down to be equal to UWisc (like, within $400 over 4 years equal... I'm not thinking that was a coincidence). At this point, all signs point to Pritzker for me. I'm going to withdraw from UCSF's waitlist for certain... I'm going to take a few more days to consider Yale but I'll likely withdraw from there as well... I just want the wondering to be over and to be able to plan with certainty where I'm going to be for the next four years. I must say that I am very happy with the outcome of my application process.
