Session 40

Waiting for a rejection or acceptance to medical school is hard. After you’ve interviewed at a medical school, when should you send an email to the Admissions Committee?

There are actually different scenarios as to when you should reach out to the admissions committee, which is what we’re discussing today.

[00:48] Admissions Committees are Busy

Understand that the admissions committees are very busy. The average school gets anywhere between 4,000 – 5,000 applications every single year. If every student were to send them an email, that admissions committee would be too busy responding to emails than just doing the work and figure out who they want to interview.

Think of every email, every phone call as an interruption to those fine men and women. They’re doing the job trying to figure out who to accept to their new class. So if you’re going to interrupt them, is it worth it?

So if you this as a barometer to decide if you’re going to interrupt the admissions office, than that will give you a head start over people who don’t even think about it. And they just keep on emailing.

[02:38] When Do You Contact Them

Pre-Interview

If you’ve applied to medical school and you haven’t heard anything about an interview and it’s only been a month to three months since you’ve applied, don’t interrupt the admissions committee.

If you have any significant updates or new grades or a new job to let them know about, make sure that what you’re going to email them with is worth the interruption if you haven’t interviewed yet.

Don’t email just to check in because that is definitely going to work.

Post-Interview

Again, don’t just call to check in. But only do it if there are significant updates during this time. This could be new classes or new grades or new jobs, etc Outside of that, you shouldn’t be interrupting the admissions committee.

[05:02] Introduction Email

There’s a couple of ways to go about the introduction email to an admissions committee or admissions office.

1.Pre-Application

Before you apply and you want to build a relationship. A lot of admissions committee have people you can talk to to give you advice on your application to see if you’re a competitive applicant for their school. They they’d also tell you what they’d recommend to make you more competitive for their school.

2.Post-Application

Here, you have one shot. It’s been awhile. If you know you’re at a significant deficit because of your GPA or MCAT, if you still think you’re a huge fit for their school, send them an email. Tell them why you think your application may be “looked past” but try to look at your upper trend. However, do not do this to every single medical school you applied to.

If three medical schools give you a shot and interview you, and three medical schools accept you, and you turned two of them, this sends a message to your school that you’re interested in going there.

[08:00] Low GPA and MCAT Scores

If your numbers are not going to meet their minimums then advocating for yourself is going to be important. But don’t do it every single school you apply to.

If your GPA and MCAT scores are that low, you need to ask yourself why you’re applying in the first place.

By the way, the episodes in this podcast are recordings of our Facebook Live that we do at 3pm Eastern on most weekdays. Check out our Facebook page and like the page to be notified. Also, listen to our other podcasts on MedEd Media. If you have any questions, call me at 617-410-6747.

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