Primary app sent to 33 schools.
Completed 22 secondaries.
Submitted AMCAS 7/27. Verified 8/13. LORs went out 9/3 through VirtualEvals.
Complete at most schools throughout September.
Interview invites from 20 schools.
Declined 5 interviews.
Attended 15 interviews.
Received 3 waitlists.
Received 12 acceptances.
-------------------------------------------
11/1/07 - Accepted to Tufts! Phone call from the Dean! I decided not to make one of these mdapps things until I had an actual acceptance in hand.
I have 3 #1 choices, Cornell, Columbia and UCLA. Realistically I probably won't get into any but a girl can dream..
11/11/07: I just fell in love with Northwestern. Chicago is amazingly beautiful. The school is lovely. Everyone is amazing. MD/MPH in 4 years! I'm really pulling for this school!
11/16/07 - Emory is simply lovely! Missed the Stanford secondary deadline! Oh well. Received a Baylor invite after 2 months of silence so I don't feel so bad about Stanford! Then.. my hopes to be dashed by a hold at UPenn.. talk about a roller coaster ride of emotions..
11/20/07 - FINALLY an invite from NYU! Thank you so much!
11/27/07 - Great time at Mount Sinai!
On a funny note: At my UCLA interview, I was asked to describe my high school experience. After I was done the interviewer laughed and asked why the heck I didn't apply for 'Disadvantaged' status! HA! And I was valedictorian! So I guess everyone who went to my high school is disadvantaged too! A funny tragedy..
12/3/07 - Accepted to University of Pittsburgh! Yes!
12/10/07 - Accepted to Northwestern! YES!!! Chi-town baby!
12/11/07 - Accepted to Rochester!
12/15/07 - All of my scheduled interviews are complete!! I don't know if I should celebrate, since I can stop paying for stuff and flying everywhere, or cry, since I have NO chance at Harvard, UCSF or Penn and have to settle in for the long wait for decisions for the rest of my schools.
12/17/07 - Accepted to Emory! Woot!!
12/19/07 - Accepted to Mount Sinai! Now I have the option of staying in NY!
12/20/07 - WOW! Just when I thought I was done with interviews I get an interview invite from UCSF! Just.. wow... speechless..
... later the same day ...
Accepted to CORNELL!! Holy shit! This was my FIRST interview and I know I was definitely was not as eloquent as I could have been. I cannot believe that I actually got into one of my top choice schools. And I can't believe I got in early in December! Merry Christmas indeed!
01/14/08 - Huh.. Interview invite from UPenn. Exciting!
02/01/08 - All of my scheduled interviews are complete!! (FINALLY!) Great time at UCSF. San Fran is awesome! Amazing time at UPenn! Completely sold on the curriculum.. its so me! Its now one of my dream schools!
02/21/08 - Accepted to the Charles Drew/UCLA program! California is now an actual possibility. It comes at a time when I'm thoroughly not enjoying the NY cold. Very tempting...
03/03/08 - 9am: Accepted to NYU! 4:30pm: Accepted to Columbia!!!!! AHHHHHHHH!!!
Speechless. I never thought I would get into all of my top three schools. A year ago I would have thought this possibility unfathomable. This is making deciding extremely difficult. I need to withdraw from some schools ASAP!
03/14/08 - Waitlisted at Wash U. It was a nice school, but I didn't fall in love with it so I'm going to withdraw from the waitlist.
3/24/08 - Accepted to UCSF!! AMAZING!! This complicates things further...
3/27/08 - Waitlisted at Penn. Tier 1. Totally fell in love with the curriculum. I couldn't have expected anything else since they put me on hold before interviewing me. Oh well. I'll hold onto it for now but at least my decision hasn't gotten more complicated.
4/1/08 - Just when I was about to withdraw from NW, they hit me up with a scholarship offer! $10,000 Merit scholarship per year.. so $40,000. Now I think I'll hold onto them until financial aid packages come in because they *might* end up being cheaper in the long run! Yay!
4/14/08 - Accepted to UCLA Geffen program and got the $5,000 first year scholarship! Yay!
On a related note I just received my financial aid estimate for Drew/UCLA and DAMN! Cali IS expensive. I'm starting to wonder if all that sunshine is really worth it because it would leave me $150k - $180k in the hole!
4/18/08 - Waitlisted at Baylor. Withdrawing!
Wow, I never thought I would be so happy to get a waitlist before but this one means the official end to my application process!! So happy right now. Now, onto decision time..
I'm ruling out Drew/UCLA (not great fin aid) and Emory (unless I get a great package). I'm leaning towards ruling out UCLA altogether because their fin aid packages were not great AND they still want me to take statistics (which means more money to pay for a course).
The heavy contenders are: Cornell, Columbia and UCSF.
Columbia: I really liked re-visit. I can see myself at this school. Everyone was very nice and the opportunities here are amazing! Plus the sense of community seemed really strong here. Combine that with P/F for the pre-clinical curriculum and being in my hometown and you've got a very attractive school.
Cornell: I haven't been to Cornell yet for re-visit but I really like their affiliations (MSK, the Rock, Hosp. Spec. Surg.). An added bonus is that they are affiliated with a hospital where my mom works and doing a rotation there would be in a sense poetic justice. I LOVE the area they are in (as opposed to Columbia's) and their facilities are the nicest I've seen on the interview trail!
UCSF: Um wow. Can't believe this is a contender! Unfortunately I can't make it to the re-visit.. which has me worried. I love that its in San Fran! I've been dying to get out to Cali and this would really be an amazing opportunity to do so! But that may also be its downfall. Its sooooooo far from everyone and everything I know. Flights back east are expensive (especially with rising oil prices). I do have 2 friends out there and 1 more heading to San Fran in 2009 though, so this is something to consider. However it's a state school and I'm anticipating less than stellar financial aid (which will determine where I'm going). I just want to make sure I'm not passing up an amazing opportunity that I will regret forever....
4/21/08 - Just called Columbia to find out what's up with financial aid, so they told me my package over the phone. SICK PACKAGE!! Barring an AMAZING offer from Cornell or UCSF (and it would really have to be amazing), I'll be at Columbia this fall!!
4/25/08 - Cornell's package was alright. Almost the same as Columbia but not quite as good.
4/29/08 - Northwestern's fin aid package was not great so I'm withdrawing. Mt. Sinai's package was the WORST I've gotten so I'm definitely withdrawing. I'll be withdrawing from Emory this week as well.
5/12/08 - Only three days left to decide. I've withdrawn from everywhere except Columbia and UCSF. Columbia is giving me the best deal financially. I chatted with Dean Wofsy at UCSF about finances to see if anything could be done, but they can't help me until after May 15... which doesn't help at all. So far Columbia is looking like where I'll be! I'm 90% certain at this point.
5/15/08 - Just e-mailed my withdrawal to UCSF. I can't believe that I got into 3 Cali schools OUT OF STATE and didn't pick any of them!! Outrageous! I was so set on UCLA at the beginning of this process.. too bad financial aid sucked. Also its a shame about UCSF. I really wanted to get out West. A word to the wise, if you have significant financial need (i.e. your family is poor) state schools are not your best bets for good financial aid.
On the flip side, I'm excited about Columbia!! Having significantly less debt and my family and middle school, high school and college friends around will be a huge bonus. I dreamed about Columbia Med during my undergrad years and told everyone that asked that P&S is where I wanted to go for med school. It's pretty crazy that it actually happened. I can't believe that the application process would turn out this well!!
P&S Class of 2012!
