In light of the COVID crisis, the AAMC has recently expanded its Fee Assistance Program income eligibility. Please take a look here for current requirements. For more information on the FAP, including an online webinar, see this AAMC page.
To support those with financial need, l continue to offer a discount to those applicants who can demonstrate a current FAP. Contact me with questions.
There is no time like the present to plan how you’ll practice for your virtual medical school interview: Last week the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) announced that they are strongly encouraging medical schools and teaching hospital faculty (that’s you, residency programs) to conduct all interviews with applicants in a virtual setting. In an additional, reinforcing announcement on away rotations (see below), the AAMC specifically addressed the residency cycle for this coming year saying that they recommend that all residency programs commit to online interviews and virtual visits for all applicants for the entire cycle. The AAMC suggests “that the medical education community commit to creating a robust digital environment and set of tools that will yield the best experiences for programs and applicants.” I applaud the AAMC for their willingness to be proactive, encourage public health, and decrease medical school and residency applicant anxiety.
Assuming there are no in-person interviews, this medical school and residency application cycle will look completely different with no applicant visits to institutions or face to face conversations with current students/residents and faculty. Schools and residency programs will be left with quite a burden to make their institutions looks distinctive and to select qualified applicants.
For the latter, be prepared to strategically handle a virtual medical school interview. Consider getting my help. For the virtual residency interview, get my help here.
On the same date that AAMC announced the recommendation regarding the virtual medical school interview, they also announced that for the 2020-21 academic year, because of COVID, away rotations should be discouraged and that ERAS’ opening be delayed. The latter has already come to fruition: While ERAS will open on September 1 for candidates to submit their applications, residency programs will not being reviewing applications and MSPEs will not be released to residency programs until October 21 this year (compared to September 15 and October 1 last cycle). Of note, ERAS did not announce a change in Match Day yet.
There are a lot of changes afoot. To keep up, check this web page, which AAMC has been updating regularly.
The Medical School Admission Requirements (MSAR) is an online database that allows users to search, sort and compare information about U.S. and Canadian medical schools. (I hate to date myself, but when I was applying to medical school and used the MSAR, it was a hard copy book.) The 2019 MSAR came out last month, and if you are applying to medical school, I’d recommend purchasing it ($28) because it provides so much information about schools and their admissions statistics. The MSAR allows you sort and compare schools by median MCAT scores, AMCAS GPAs, and other criteria.
You should use the MSAR to help determine which schools are in your range and which are “reach” schools. While it’s fine to have a lot of “reach” schools (if you can afford it), it’s critical to ensure you are applying wisely to schools that match your numbers. The advantage of the MSAR is that you can make evidence-based decisions. I’ve found some applicants have eye-opening experiences when they thoroughly review schools’ statistics and either realize that their numbers are low and that they should apply accordingly or, happily, that they have numbers that match with top schools. Either way, reviewing the data is critical to good decision making.
Here’s some interesting information from the Association of American Medical Colleges on the recently proposed Graduate Medical Education (GME) Bill. The legislation’s intent is to increase the number of residency training slots in an effort to improve the U.S. physician shortage problem
Assessing your score on the new MCAT is not easy. The AAMC has no plans to release an MCAT conversation table from old to new scores, as their position is that the tests are not comparable.
With the old test, the conventional wisdom was that getting a 30 or 31 (approximately the 85th percentile) was the threshold to aim for, as it represented the allopathic medical school new matriculant average. Until we see who gets into medical school this year and what their corresponding scores are, it’s hard to know what the “new 30” is.
Having said all of that, using last year’s MSAR should still help you decide whether you need to re-test. An option for those committed to medicine who don’t score at or above the “new 30” is osteopathic medical school, an institution that shows a great commitment to primary and holistic care and a (limited) leniency with MCAT scores. (Students entering osteopathic medical schools in 2013 had an MCAT score of 27. Their average GPA was 3.5 compared to 3.69 for incoming allopathic students.) Here is a great New York Times piece about DO schools.)
We have to take a wait and see approach to assess scores from the new MCAT, but it is key that you ensure you give yourself enough time to study and that you prepare effectively.
Dr. Finkel is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Medical School. On completing her residency at Harvard, she was asked to
stay on as faculty at Harvard Medical School and spent five years teaching at the world-renowned Massachusetts General Hospital.
She was appointed to the Assistant Residency Director position for the Harvard Affiliated
Emergency Medicine Residency where she reviewed countless applications, personal statements and resumes. Read more
