Building a List of Schools

Building a List of Schools

Coming up with a list of schools is a time-consuming but essential process to gearing up to apply in the upcoming cycle. Being strategic about the schools you apply to can give you a great advantage during the process, and even improve your chances of getting in!

• The best way to begin making a list of schools is to start a google sheet of every school you are interested in, charting GPA, MCAT, applications they receive per year, OOS-friendly, etc. Then, start narrowing down until you get to the number you want!

MSAR MSAR MSAR !!!

• Buy the MSAR! This will be your best investment all cycle, and it costs $28 for 1 year or $36 for 2 years.
• The best time to buy it is after you receive your MCAT scores and are ready to begin the application cycle
• Without your MCAT score, the MSAR will not be as useful and it may also expire earlier in the interview cycle.
• It is also helpful to have MSAR as long as possible in the school year to help you look up school information before interview days and making final decisions between acceptances (if you are thinking about only getting a one year subscription)

Distributing Your School List:

• If you are an average applicant, make sure you are not applying to mostly schools that are considered “safety” or “reach.” You want to distribute your list using MSAR where a majority of the schools you are applying to are “target” and then have a couple “safety” and “reach” schools.
• “Safety” →  above 75%
• “Target” → within 25-75% for GPA and MCAT
• “Reach” → below 25%

Secondaries:

• Most applicants apply to 20+ schools.
• Although sending in the primary application just requires ~$40 and a click of a button, completing each school’s secondaries can be a super expensive and tough process (~$70-$200 per secondary and several essays).
• Before you send your primary off to a school, ask yourself whether you will have the time and energy to complete the secondary. You may even want to do some brief research on what the secondary prompts have been in previous years (no guarantee they will repeat). Some schools have over a half a dozen essays, or a really long or odd prompt so you will not want to apply unless you are very invested in the school’s mission and program.

Tuition:

• In-state schools are usually much cheaper (especially public medical schools)
• Some out of state (OOS) school’s will consider you an in-state resident (you’ll get to pay in-state tuition) after you’ve attended their institution for a year or two.
• Check out school tuition policies to see if this could apply to you!

Relevance:

• More important than metrics, extracurriculars, letters, and essays — the schools that you target can have the greatest impact on your success in a given application cycle.
• Most students spend months cultivating the perfect school list: doing internet research, talking to current students, and seeing advisors.
• Make sure that you would be willing to attend every school on your list. In all reality, you may only get into your last choice – would you be ready to go there?

Geographics:

• The first thing to consider is the geographical location of the school you will want to attend (Urban/Rural/Suburban, region of choice, etc.)
• Many MI medical schools, for example, are much more likely to interview and accept Michigan residents.
• If you are from the state of MI and want to stay here, the 6-7 schools in Michigan will be your best bet: focus your applications here.
• Do your research if you’re applying to an out of state (OOS) school!
• Some OOS schools only accept applicants with strong ties to the school/region/state.
• Take a look at the map on MSAR to see what states the school typically takes students from.
• If a school shows a preference for in-state, think critically about if it’s worth spending time/money applying to that particular school.

Yield:

• Look into how many applications that school receives each cycle. Some schools are notoriously “low-yield,” which means they receive much more applications (12,000+) or have much fewer spots (<50)  than the average school .
• Some examples: Drexel, George Washington, Georgetown, Temple, Boston University, Mayo, Jefferson, Tufts, etc …
• This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just make sure your entire list aren’t only low-yields.

School Focus:

• Read school’s missions to find out what their focus is on: examples include:
• Research (Cleveland, Stanford, Michigan…)
• Comprehensive Patient-care (Central, OUWB…)
• Public/global Health (George Washington, Emory…)
• Community Service (Rush, MSU…)
• Some schools are better for known for some specialties than other schools
• IF you have an idea of what specialty you might want to go into, MSAR provides stats on what kinds of specialties their matriculants eventually go into → this is a great tool!

Age of Applicant:

• Taking a gap year before medical school is more and more common these days. This puts anyone applying directly out of undergrad at a disadvantage when it comes to the application cycle.
• This is not to discourage those of you that feel ready for medical school after your junior year of college.
• You can still maximize your chances by applying smart