If you’ve received a medical school acceptance letter, congratulations! But what if the letter is from one of your lowest-ranked safety schools?
As a result, you are torn between accepting the offer and reapplying to medical school next year. But before you settle on a course of action, consider the following options.
How to [decide between multiple medical school acceptances.]
Option 1: Reapply to Medical School
When should you reapply to medical school? A late initial application is one of the best reasons. Applying late can easily limit your options, as can applying to too few schools.
The precise number of programs that you should apply to varies from person to person, but it is generally best to apply to roughly 12 to 15 schools.
A variant of this scenario is failing to apply to a sufficient number of target schools. If you were rejected by several elite schools and accepted by one or two below your skill level, perhaps the issue is not the number of programs, but instead the distribution of them.
Last, remember that reapplying will not harm your chances next year, but schools will expect to see change. This might mean a new letter of recommendation or an improved MCAT score. Research is also a possibility, as schools are always interested in acquiring those students who promise to push the boundaries of our knowledge further.
Know five [errors to avoid when reapplying to medical school.]
The main reason that students worry about attending specific schools is the school’s residency match rates for particular specialties. There are two important caveats to this.
First, you are perhaps more likely to change your mind about a specialty than to continue into it, especially when you consider that you are not yet studying medicine. Second, match rates often reflect the overall caliber of students at the school, and doing well on the United States Medical Licensing Examination ultimately matters most to your match chances.
Why you should [wait to determine a medical school specialty.]
Option 2: Accept the Offer
The expression “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” absolutely applies here. The Association of American Medical Colleges publishes a grid of acceptance rates. Review the data that applies to you, but be careful when interpreting it.
If you were accepted to a safety school, you are part of these accepted statistics, and the students who were not accepted likely still applied to 12 to 15 schools. Unless your odds of acceptance are very high — 75 percent or more — applying again, even widely, may be a mistake.
If your profile’s odds of acceptance are under 75 percent, then you should accept the reality of the situation and dive into learning medicine at your new school. Part of that reality is accepting the fact that while transfers are possible, they are unlikely, especially since schools have variable academic schedules as well as curricula that are designed to fit within their own schedules. That being said, if transferring is part of your plan, accepting your offer is the first step in this plan.
If you find yourself in the predicament of choosing between a safety program and reapplication to medical school, be realistic above all else. You should only abandon an offer of admission if there is a rational — and correctable — reason why your application was not successful. The school helps, but the student matters more when determining future success.
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Weigh 2 Options After a Safety Medical School Acceptance originally appeared on usnews.com