in the area, secondary apps, md/phd interview calendar, school visits
by Morimoto, Emiko Taira Adachi
Dear Applicants,
We hope this finds you well and surviving the "waiting for interviews" stage. Some of you have received a couple interview invitations, and many of you have none so far. This is all normal at this stage since it is very early in the interview season. Hang in there for now. We believe that ~15-20% of interview invitations have been sent out, but this obviously varies widely from school to school and applicant to applicant.
1. "In the area" emails for interview invitations.
We have started getting questions about sending "in the area" requests. The answer is that it is fine to send these to schools that are some distance away once you have one interview in the area. It makes less sense to do them for places like NYC if you are in Boston, but by all means try to group your California interviews, your Chicago interviews, etc. We suggest you not try to do this if the scheduled interview is less than two weeks away.
When you send your request, you want to be very gracious with the language--you realize that not everyone is granted an interview; you understand this may not be possible; you will be honored to come whenever they invite you, but it would save you the financial hardship of an additional trip; etc. Give them the specific days you would be willing to come. Keep the language professional. This is not the time to sneak in an update. This is just a simple request. If you are unclear about whether you are saying the right thing, it is fine to send your draft email to your House tutor to review or you can send this to premed(a)fas.harvard.edu<mailto:premed@fas.harvard.edu>.
1. Secondary applications and completeness of application.
We have heard stories from applicants who found long-buried secondary invitations in their spam folders. This would be a good time to make sure your application is complete at all your medical schools and to dig a bit deeper for any medical schools where you have not received a secondary. For some schools, you need to go on to their website/application portal to access their secondary. For some schools you will have already received an email saying your application is complete or you are able to check on their application portal. For schools where you have not heard yet and can't check online, you can send a brief email just confirming that your application is complete. This is not an update, but rather a simple request for confirmation.
1. MD-PhD interview calendar.
The dates for MD/PhD are on the AAMC.ORG website and can be found here.<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__calendar.google.com_ca…> This is especially useful for schools that have a very limited number of days, so that you can try to save interview dates for those schools.
1. Upcoming medical school visits
We will have several medical school visits this fall, and more are being added every week. If you are applying to these schools, you should definitely make an effort to attend. Here are the ones that have been scheduled so far. Please RSVP in Crimson Careers<https://harvard-csm.symplicity.com/students/index.php?signin_tab=0>.
Duke University School of Medicine
Tuesday, October 8, 4:30-5:30pm at OCS
New York University Long Island School of Medicine
Thursday, October 17, 4:30-5:30 at OCS
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Monday, October 21, 4:30-5:30 at OCS
Georgetown University School of Medicine
Monday, October 28, Virtual Information Session 4:30-5:30 pm at OCS (if you are not able to attend, feel free to join remotely https://georgetown.zoom.us/j/151412201<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__georgetown.zoom.us_j_1…>)
Tufts University School of Medicine
Wednesday, November 6, 4:30-5:30pm, at OCS
Harvard Medical School
Wednesday, November 20, 7-8 pm (location TBD)
Please stay in touch if we can be of help and have a good weekend!
Best,
Emiko & Oona
