Application Cycle One: 2005

• Undergraduate college: University of Wisconsin - Madison
• Undergraduate Area of study: Biological/Life Sciences

• Total MCAT SCORE: 505
• MCAT Section Scores: B/B 129, C/P 126, CARS 124   Detailed Breakdown
• Overall GPA: 3.98
• Science GPA: 4.00

Summary of Application Experience

Its a lot of luck to get an interview, and to eventually get in. But if you do a lot of cool stuff in your undergraduate years, they are more likely to interview you and they have lots of good questions to ask at the interview. Just waiting to hear from the schools I interviewed at, which is taking so long! I thought they would get back to me within a month, but it has been longer.

The MCAT is a mystery to me, my Kaplan test scores were around 31-32, but I tried my best dealing with class and test prep for the april test. I am so thankful for the interviews I have received. Looking at MDapplicant and searching for people that interviewed where I interviewed showed almost no applicants with my MCAT (most of which were non-traditional and/or URMs). Actually for Duke and Brown I seem to be the first 28 and under MCAT interviewee. Of those that interviewed few were accepted. So time will only tell if I get accepted, and if they can look past my just average MCAT score and see that I am a pretty cool guy.

So, a little story....

My family friend applied two years ago to 25 top tier schools, interviewed at 21 (holy cow), and got accepted to only 2. Why did this person get so many interviews... he had a 35 mcat (wait, I believe it was like a 36/37 now that I think about it), and 4.0 gpa. So, schools do care a lot about numbers. Why only 2 acceptances? Cause he's a cocky shithead, and it must have come across during the interview. In my case, I'm probably similar to his application, except I have an MCAT score that is just OK. I applied to 25 schools got 5 interviews, (still waiting for acceptances from them). Many of these schools must be complete number whores, I bet if I had a better MCAT I would have gotten many more interviews. But, if in the end I do get accepted to any of the amazing schools I interviewed at, I will have the last laugh. This is because I didn't waste my time and money interviewing at 20 schools, for gods sake, thats like atleast 5,000 dollars for hotels and flights. In conclusion, Georgetown, Duke, BU, Tufts, seem to put much less emphasis on the mcat and more on you as a person.

Update: 12/21

Still scheduled for Brown interview next semester. Today received Albert Einstein Interview offer. They keep trickling in. My guess is, they didn't know what to do with my file during the preliminary screening, put it on hold, and now I'm getting favorably reviewed when they re-evaluate my file. We'll see if there are more interviews, I really am having trouble seeing myself leaving the midwest. U of MN has pretty much everything I want in a med school.

Thanks for your comments everyone! Good luck.

Update: 12/27 on Cocky Shithead
So it turns out the guy who had all those interviews was waitlisted first for the two schools that eventually accepted him. For one school their family friend who had donated a lot of money to the school was essential for the acceptance, and at the other school his parents were alumni and made a generous donation...and then ta-da acceptance. Crazy stuff huh, I had no idea that who you know could actually get you into medical school!