Congratulations on your acceptance. I suspect there is more to your story than has been provided. You say your EC's are in order -- so does that mean you display a consistency of medical motivation (clinical vol & shadow), humanism (comm svc vol), teamwork/leadership, research? As for your 3.0 gpa....is there a particular trend (slow start, strong finish, etc.). Were there some hardships that were overcome, are you a non-traditional student in some way? The answers to these may lend insight as to you selection for interview as well as may portend future acceptance based on your MS program.
Presumably you will send an end of semester update to those schools that have not yet interviewed you?
I would suspect that next year could be better for you in the DO/MD acceptance world with a solid performance in your current academic MS. Yes an acceptance is great...you dont seem satisfied with that program. I would expect that a ~3pt bump up in MCAT and two solid semesters of MS work will garner more than a new DO offer next year.
Final thought --- 45,000 applicants to MD this year with ~23,000+ seats. More MD and DO programs are new or expanding seats. Residency opportunities are not growing. Currently ~70% residencies go to MD, ~20% DO, ~10% FMG --- over the last 2-3 years there has been some shock in the MD community as a few 100 are not matching (mostly because they arent realistic in their choice of residency). My recollection of the applicant match this past year showed ~90% match for MD, 60% for DO, dont recall for FMG. With more applicants, these percentages will change; presumably FMG will decrease, and if MD's look to realistic match opportunities and go more for primary care openings DO may also be impacted in a negative way. (The #/%'s listed here are not gospel, but are "ballpark" based on my memory from numbers at a national conference attended recently).
Hope that this helps.
Thank you! It's truly a blessing to be accepted and I don't want to sound ungrateful for this opportunity, I just want to be able to look back and say I gave it my all. The school is great, very up-to-date and I can definitely see myself excelling there. However, it's a new school which always comes with the issues of tuning the curriculum, schedules, etc. And it's location, though not especially bad, is less than ideal for me and the clinical rotations appear to be limited.
I think my EC's show consistent medical motivation: 5 years as a practicing, volunteer EMT (certified 5 years NJ, 2 years FL), a year and a half as a paid medical supervisor for a pharmaceutical company, one year of volunteer research in Europe, one year of volunteer research in the U.S. (no pubs) Shadowed PM&R, Anes, GP. All that plus multiple smaller volunteer activities, clubs, leadership positions etc.
Grades started out at 4.0 my first year, dropped for 2nd and 3rd and came up during my senior year. The 2 A-'s in Organic Chem and 2 A's in Gen Chem are my only redeeming science grades. I was an Econ major with minors in Bio and Chem so I don't have any science classes beyond the pre-reqs.
I took the MCAT with one month of dedicated studying and lacking both Orgo's and Biochem, not to mention the classes I'm taking this semester for the MS (Genetics, Biochem, Anatomy and Immunology) The MS program offers a princeton review course which I planned on taking next semester as well.
Not non-traditional, no major setbacks besides 2 withdrawn classes for illness.
Yes, once I finish the semester I'll definitely be sending my transcripts out to the schools who I haven't heard from.
With at least a 3pt bump and a good/great GPA I think I would have a great shot at my state MD schools, not to mention the state DO schools. Like someone said before, it's all a lot of "ifs," but the way I see it, failing to prepare is preparing to fail. (So cheesy. But it's tried and true)
Can you explain that last paragraph? I'm a bit confused. DO's will have a less chance as more MD's go for primary care? Is that just for AMA or are AOA residencies included in those calculations?
Yes, schools vary in their deferral policy. At some schools they are solicited by the administration(due to overacceptance). At some they are granted on request without much interest in the reason behind it. At others they are given for "Good Reason" which can vary from getting a prestigious research appointment, parent with serious illness, personal tempory medical issue (pregnancy), delay in expected graduation date, etc (in other words, "Good Reasons" vary widely). Some schools will not consider a deferral.
No SDNer will have insight into how often every school grants deferral. At mine it's not rare, but certainly not commonplace.
Ok, good to hear. I was under the impression is was a very, very rare occurrence. I'm going to contact admissions and see what I can do.
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