Other MDApps profiles that I found helpful (specifically for MD/PhD applicants): Nigel Vermouth, neurotroph, will update with more as I think of them!
// Applications //
Application Cycle One: 05/31/2015
Total MCAT SCORE: 472
MCAT Section Scores:
B/B 118,
C/P 118,
CARS 118
Overall GPA: 0.00
Science GPA: 0.00
Summary of Application Experience
GENERAL ADVICE - getting the interview: honestly, this is a bit of a black box to me. Clearly, stats are important, but they're also not everything. I think, because there's usually a significantly smaller applicant pool for MD/PhD programs than for traditional MD programs, adcoms have the time/energy to look more closely at each application, beyond initial demographics. But maybe that's wishful thinking. Certainly, you can do exceedingly well as a lower stats applicants. It's just going to be harder, and I'd encourage you to apply to a wider range of schools. Oh, and if you're a good writer, I think that matters (though, to a lesser extent). The overall goal of your paper application is to be interesting and memorable enough to be worthy of further conversation. You can achieve this in a variety of ways. Play to your strengths
- getting the acceptance: for the love of all the money you're spending on this application process, PRACTICE answers to standard interview questions. And do a mock interview, if not with your school, then with a family member. Interview questions that you will undoubtably encounter over and over: 1) why MD/PhD? 2) tell me about the most recent/most exciting research project you were involved with 3) why school x? what faculty would you be interested in working with? (it's totally NOT necessary to review recent papers. Just look over websites. If you want to be extra thorough, search PIs of interest in the NIH RePORTER tool to determine (the majority - excluding private foundation grants) of topics that are currently being funded.) 4) do you have any questions for me? (it's ok to say no, but at least try to say something like 'well, I had questions about xyz, but we already discussed that' to show you're interested in/have previously thought about the particulars of this school's program) 5) tell me about yourself (my guess is that this happens when, as is so often the case, interviewer didn't have any time to look over your application. Thus, make sure you have a concise response to this question that highlights the relevant parts of your life/application)
Hope this helps! I'm so excited to meet y'all at interviews :)
Application Complete, Rejected
Cornell University
Applying for combined PhD/MSTP? Yes
Submitted: Yes
Secondary Completed: Yes
Interview Invite: No
Interview Attended: No
Waitlisted: No
Accepted: No
Rejected: Yes
Summary of Experience:
Rejected ~1 month after submitting secondary
Summary of Experience:
Invited to interview after ~3 months of being on hold. I think Pritzker and Chicago are really lovely, but it's not the best place for my research interests. Very sad to miss out on deep dish pizza though :(
Summary of Experience:
I was very close to not accepting this interview after hearing many horror stories about training at Harvard from faculty at other institutions, but eventually decided I might as well see for myself.
Interview with MSTP one day, interview with Pathways and/or HST other day. Interview with MSTP consists of two long interviews with faculty, and one very brief interview with the program director. Many other MDApps profiles out there detail the MD interview experience at Harvard, so I won't go into that :)
Overall, I think Harvard's MD/PhD program has made many positive changes since the new program director started 3 years ago. Ultimately, though, I think the intensity of the scientific training environment at Harvard is a bit too much for me.
Other random stuff: most (if not all) applicants stayed with current students in Vanderbilt Hall, right across the street from the main HMS campus, program director was impressive & forthright, if not the most endearing
Summary of Experience:
UW MSTP's website is really thorough, so check that out if you want more information about the interview experience. Similar committee interview to WashU's.. maybe an even larger number of committee members
Definitely bummed to be rejected. I love Seattle, but UW's also not the best fit for my research interests.
Other random stuff: pairs of applicants shared rooms in a hotel about a mile away from the UW campus, current students are a sweet, down-to-earth bunch
Summary of Experience:
Like at Duke, you're grouped in with the MD applicants on one day (MMI), and then have a separate day of MSTP interviews, MSTP interviews consist of 2 interviews with adcom members, 1 interview with a current MSTP students, and 2 "informational" interviews with faculty of your choice.
This was the only program where I felt that the "vibe" was off, and that I didn't fit in well with the current students. I think Stanford is an excellent place if you're interested in doing any sort of engineering/computational bio work (or collaborations).. I thought this was really highlighted during orientation/conversations I had with faculty & students.
Other random stuff: most applicants stayed with student hosts in on- and off-campus housing, beautiful campus w/ undergrad + med + most labs in one place
12/20: waitlisted MD, never heard back officially from MSTP, but assuming rejection
Summary of Experience:
Fell in love with SF (though not the cost-of-living), overwhelmed by the awesomeness of scientific + clinical training, am eagerly, eagerly awaiting a decision
Whew, finally got around to updating this with my actual interview experience: Like at a number of other schools, at UCSF you're treated as an MD applicant one day (you interview with two faculty or one faculty and one student), and as an MD/PhD applicant the other day (interview with ~4 faculty, at least 1 of whom is on the admissions committee; the rest are selected based on your requests). At lunch on the MD/PhD interview day, applicants were paired with upper-level graduate students in your area of interest, which was nice. Otherwise, like at most other places, you spend most of your interview interacting with MS1 & 2s.
UCSF is (obviously) an amazing place to get your clinical & - especially - scientific training, & the students (or, at least, the ones I met) are incredible, the sort of people who are brilliant, friendly, AND seriously involved in some non-medical/scientific pursuit. However, I definitely got the feeling that UCSF is not particularly accommodating of MD/PhD students (as compared to, say, WashU), no one's going to pre-grease the wheel for you here. But, hey, welcome to a public school!
Other random stuff: applicants stayed with student hosts. Quality of accommodations variable, but, given that SF is not a very car-friendly place, I think they always try to match applicants with hosts that are within walking distance to Parnassus, the med campus (so you don't have to figure out public transportation just right then).
Summary of Experience:
Duke only interviews ~6 MD/PhD applicants at each interview date. One day, you're with the (much larger, totaling ~30) group of MD-only applicants. The MD interview day is structured as a MMI
The MSTP interview day was particularly tiring, because you interview with so many faculty - I think I interviewed with 7 or 8. There's also a committee interview, a la WashU's, but it's a much smaller admissions committee of ~5 faculty, including the directors of the MD/PhD program. Overall, I found the committee interview at Duke far less nerve-wracking, but I think that's probably a simple function of the (fewer) number of people staring at me.
Other random stuff: They put you up at a really nice hotel, exceedingly nice directors/program administration, program attempts to match you up with current students from your alma mater at current student-applicant dinner(s).
12/22: accepted via phone call! Happy and grateful
Summary of Experience:
One (very long) day of MSTP interviews if you're interviewing for UCLA only; 2 days if you're interviewing for the UCLA-Caltech program. Standard faculty interviews with faculty matched by research interest + faculty on the admissions committee. Also, a brief interview with the program director. No MMIs (unlike MD-only applicants)
Seems they're trying to expand the social sciences side of their MSTP (e.g. PhD in anthro or soc)
Other random stuff: pairs of applicants shared room in nearby hotel, current students seem very happy
Summary of Experience:
WashU MSTP also has a very detailed description of their interview schedule on their website.. check it out!
Other random stuff: pairs of applicants shared rooms in a hotel across the street from the WUSM campus, the organization/running of the MD/PhD program here is darn impressive - I was told by a number of faculty at other institutions some variation of "WashU MSTP knows their stuff"
11/20: accepted via phone call! LOVED this program, was ecstatic to be accepted (my first one!)
Summary of Experience:
A lot of MD/PhD programs give lip service to the concept of 'vertical integration,' or the idea of having students intermingling across years (i.e. 1st years know 8th years), but JHU was the only program I interviewed at where it actually seemed like this was true. 8th years actually knew the names of 1st & 2nd years. Also impressive was the fact that clinical year students (seemingly) happily chatted with interviewees in the MSTP lounge during our down time.
I liked the students here, but didn't have the best interactions with faculty. You have 1 day of interviews at JHU; most (I think 4?) are MSTP/PhD-y interviews, 1 interview is an MD interview with an MD adcom member. JHU tries to match you with faculty based on your short stated research interests, but I didn't think they did a particularly good job with me. One of the faculty was really down on living in Baltimore, and seemed incredulous that I would actively desire to live there (um, don't you live and work here?? is what I wanted to say, but didn't). Another faculty did a lot of (political) name-dropping, bizarrely, which left a really bad taste in my mouth. I left my interview charmed by the students & the director (a really strong advocate for female physician-scientists) + admin team (omg Sharon is SO NICE), but not particularly excited about the science.
Other random stuff: applicants stayed with student hosts. Quality of accommodations and distance from host house/apartment to JHU med campus vary, of course.
accepted via snail mail, postmarked 2/17! My initial acceptance was unfunded, and I withdrew pretty quickly post-acceptance, so I dunno whether the position would have converted to a funded one. At my interview, the director mentioned that, in practice, students never (?) (or maybe, never in the last few years, since the website says otherwise) matriculate into the MSTP without funding.
Summary of Experience:
Friendly, relaxed interview. A couple of MSTP interviews with faculty on the admissions committee, though not necessarily matched with applicant's research interests (I wish they would change this so applicants had more time - outside of revisit - to meet with faculty of interest), plus a slightly weird (does this matter a lot? Or just a friendly thing), very short - 15 min - wrap-up interview with the incredibly sweet MSTP director. I suppose this is the time to say if you're totally committed to going, or if you had some poor interactions in your earlier interviews that you want to clarify.
We also were the first cohort of MSTP applicants to do a "mini" MMI. I think we did half as many stations as the traditional MD applicants. Have no idea whether they'll continue this trend in future years.
Other random stuff: small groups (3-4) of applicants shared huge (2-story!) room in nearby hotel, MSTP director team + administrative team have been around for a while, seem to care about students a lot; this is an A+++ school if you're interested in BioE or computational neuro. Also, the beach (the beach!!) is a walk away. Seriously, an incomparable location
2/17: accepted via phone call!!!!!! So happy and thrilled
gonefishing took the old MCAT and scored a 3 which is in the 0 percentile of all old scores.
We converted this to a 472 on the updated scale which is in the -1st percentile of the updated MCAT. We also converted gonefishing’s section scores as follows:
gonefishing scored a 1 on the Biological Science section of the old MCAT which is approximately equal to a 118 on the Biological and Biochemical Foundations of Living Systems.
gonefishing scored a 1 on the Physical Science section of the old MCAT which is approximately equal to a 118 on the Chemical and Physical Foundations of Biological Systems.
gonefishing scored a 1 on the Verbal Reasoning section of the old MCAT which is approximately equal to a 118 on the Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills.
