2019 applicants!!
by Morimoto, Emiko Taira Adachi
Dear 2019 Applicants,
We know many of you have been hearing from a number of schools lately. We know some of you are thrilled with your choices, some of you have received disappointing rejections, and some of you are navigating waitlists. We have been getting lots of emails about wait list strategies, so we are sending along some general advice. Some of this is similar to information we sent out in January, but we are sending it again because of all the questions that are pouring in.
1. All settled? If you have made a decision about the one school you are attending and have withdrawn from other schools, then you may want to unsubscribe yourself from this list serve. We hope it has been useful for you and we wish you all the best in your medical careers.
1. Multiple acceptances. Most of you have been fortunate enough to receive an acceptance already. Many of those schools will ask you to send in a deposit and/or a written notice that you accept the spot. There are clear protocols that govern acceptances- please review the AAMC guidelines and review all communication about the Choose Your Medical School tool. As long as you are holding only one acceptance on April 30th, all of the deposits you have paid will be returned, except for the one at the final school that you plan to attend. As you get acceptances, you should withdraw from schools where you do not intend to matriculate. Many of you may need and want to hold on to multiple acceptances until you hear about financial aid offers. That is completely appropriate. For many schools, however, you might know that you will attend school A over school B regardless of what the financial aid package looks like and in that case it is appropriate to withdraw from school B once you have been accepted to school A. Both your House tutors and OCS premed advisers are happy to discuss these choices with you. Please try not to hold onto schools that you do not plan to attend once you have an acceptance someplace else.
1. Waitlists. For those of you on waitlists for schools that you hope to attend, it can make sense to send updates every month or so unless schools have asked you not to or unless there are limited updates allowed on their portals. If you are on a waitlist, but are accepted to another school that you prefer, write and remove yourself from the waitlist. The overwhelming majority of the movement on waitlists will take place between the middle of May and the middle of June. People can get off waitlists up until 21 days before they matriculate at another school (per the new AAMC guidelines). Your House tutors and we are happy to advise you about wait list strategies. However, once you are admitted to any medical school it is Harvard policy that your tutors will not be able to advocate for you further with a medical school for admission off a waitlist or for an interview at another school. We have a number of medical schools visiting this spring (Vanderbilt, University of Michigan, WashU, NYU, Cornell, Penn). For those of you on waitlists at those schools, you may wish to attend the information sessions to introduce yourselves to those admissions officers. A listing of those visits can be found on the Premed and Health Careers calendar on our website.<http://ocs.fas.harvard.edu/medical-health>
1. Letters of Intent. We have been getting lots of questions about letters of intent. You do not need to be in a hurry to tell one medical school that if admitted you will attend. At times, this can be useful and appropriate, but for many circumstances it is still too early. Most movement off waitlists will not happen for some time, as noted above. If you tell a school that you will come if admitted, then you need to stick with that even if you are waitlisted there while you are accepted to another school. You are honor bound to go to that school if you tell them you will. At some point well into the summer when you may have signed a lease, gotten a roommate, made moving arrangements to go one place, etc. then it is reasonable to withdraw from a waitlist at another school where you have said you will matriculate if accepted. Just getting into another school in March, April, May, or early June, however, does not release from that letter of intent if you made such a promise.
You may be surprised to find that an acceptance at one place or a large merit scholarship suddenly changes your mind about how you want to proceed. Do not box yourself into a corner that you do not need to be in. Get in touch with your tutors or OCS if you are thinking about sending such a letter. If you choose to send one, they can be short and to the point. You are not selling yourself in this letter, just making the firm statement that if admitted, you will come.
1. No Acceptances so far. If you are in a position where you have no acceptances at this point, please get in touch with your House tutors and the OCS premed team (if you have not been in touch with us recently). Every situation is different, but there are still more acceptances coming. We can help you think through your best options for this cycle and help you think about future cycles if that becomes necessary.
Best,
Emiko & Oona
Premedical and Health Careers Advising
http://ocs.fas.harvard.edu/medical-health
Office of Career Services<http://www.ocs.fas.harvard.edu/>, Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
54 Dunster Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, Ph.: 617.495.2595
[Description: cid:image001.jpg@01CD8445.F53D2F50]<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.facebook.com_OCSHar…>[Description: cid:image002.jpg@01CD8445.F53D2F50]<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__twitter.com_HarvardOCS&…>[Description: cid:image003.jpg@01CD8445.F53D2F50]<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__ocsharvard.tumblr.com_&…>[Description: cid:image004.jpg@01CD8445.F53D2F50]<http://www.ocs.fas.harvard.edu/>
tel: 617.495.2595
