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Show Summary
In this episode, Linda Abraham interviews Christian Essman, Senior Director of Admissions and Financial Aid at Case Western Reserve University Medical School. They discuss the unique aspects of Case Western’s three MD programs, the significance of research in the application process, and what makes an applicant stand out. Christian emphasizes the importance of quality experiences and reflections in the application essays and advises applicants to submit their applications when they are in tip-top shape, rather than rushing to submit on the first day. He also discusses the culture at Case Western, describing it as laid-back, balanced, and invested in the success of its students.
Show Notes
Thanks for tuning into the 571st episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Are you ready to apply to your dream medical schools? Are you competitive at your target programs? Accepted’s med school admissions quiz can give you a quick reality check. Just go to accepted.com/medquiz, complete the quiz and you’ll not only get an assessment but tips on how to improve your chances of acceptance. Plus, it’s all free.
I’m delighted to introduce today’s guest, Christian Essman, senior director of admissions and financial aid and fellow podcaster and host of the All Access Med School Admissions Podcast.
Christian, thank you so much for joining me today on Admissions Straight Talk. [1:31]
Hi, Linda. Delighted to be here. Thank you for having me.
Let’s start with some just really basic information about Case Western University’s medical school programs. Can you give a 30,000-foot perspective or view of the three MD programs that it offers? [1:39]
Certainly. We’re a bit unique in that we have not one, not two, but three different pathways to an MD/MD-PhD. The first one is the university program, which is our four-year MD, which is a traditional four-year degree. Then we have our MD-PhD program, which is a medical scientist training program, and that’s about eight or nine years. MSTP actually started at Case Western back in the 1950s, by the way. It’s the longest NIH-funded program ever in the history of the universe. And then the one in the middle is unique. I don’t know if the word boutiquey is a word, but it’s boutiquey. Our Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. So these are all three Case Western programs. They’re under the umbrella of the university and they’re all Case Western students, but we have three tracks.
So the one in the middle, the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, is a five-year MD and it’s for students who really like research. Really, really, really like research. But maybe advancing to an MD-PhD is not an educational goal to be in school for eight or nine years and getting a PhD, but they really like research. And so the reason why it’s five years is because they thread research throughout the entire five years that you’re there. And at one point students will step away usually after the second year to do 12 months of research with the results of hopefully having some publishable results. And so it’s for students who might be considering MD-PhD, maybe they’re also applying to MD-PhD. So it’s one in the middle there and so that’s why we have three different tracks. It’s a bit unique.
It is unique. I don’t know of any other school that has that three structured program. [3:36]
When people apply to us in AMCAS, they apply to Case Western and then in the secondary application, they can indicate which program or programs plural that they want to apply to. And so you could apply to the university program and the Cleveland Clinic program and then you get separate admissions decisions. We review them separately. So it’s two for one or three for one if you want to think of it that way. But I will say this. Very few students apply to all three. Usually, if you’re interested in MD-PhD, that’s what you’re applying to, and then maybe add in Cleveland Clinic, but very few applicants apply to all three.
We evaluate everybody separately. So I don’t call to my colleagues down the hallway and say, “Hey, Cleveland Clinic friends, what are you guys doing with this applicant?” We don’t have those conversations. So it’s possible to get interviews at two programs and then be accepted to both and then you decide, or you could be interviewed at one and not the other or interview both and be accepted and waitlisted at the other. So there are all kinds of permutations that can happen after that.
Let’s dive into the biggest program, the four-year MD program. Can you provide an overview of that program focusing on its more distinctive elements, how is it structured, what is the focus, et cetera? [4:58]
The university program is our largest program. The class size is 170. And a couple of the cornerstones of this program would be a lot of small-group. team-based learning. Problem-based learning that in the first two years that is likely the main vehicle for medical education delivery in the first two years. We talk to students when they matriculate. We do some fun little focus groups with first years after they come here and sit down with them and ask them things about the interview process that they went through the year prior. And oftentimes, those new first years will tell us one thing that stuck out about this university program is that you guys say you do small-group learning and you mean it. It’s three, sometimes four days a week for two years. Whereas some other schools, “Oh yeah, we do small group learning.” But it’s like once every six weeks. For students that like to work in small-group, intimate, collaborative learning environments this is something really to think about very carefully because that’s where a majority of the learning takes place. There are lectures that occur afterward, framing bigger picture topics, but really the main vehicle where students roll up their sleeves and get into the material and learn how to unpack the basic sciences with the clinical sciences, that’s where it happens.
Another cornerstone of the university program would be the research piece. I mentioned a few moments ago we have three tracks. All three tracks have research embedded within it. The difference is the intensity level. So I mentioned the Cleveland Clinic program has a 12-month research focus. The PhD clearly has a PhD embedded within it. The university program has a scholarly project. We call it a thesis, but it’s not a master’s level thesis. Secretly in our office … I’m going to let the secret out. We call it a “diet thesis” or a “thesis lite” if you will. So it’s experiential research that every student gets involved in. So they choose a project, it’s a mentored thesis, and so they can dip their toe into what medical research can look like. It’s not about churning out physicians and scientists out of the university program. We have two other programs that that’s their philosophy. This is about exposing all of our students to medical research so they gain an appreciation for the time and effort and sometimes the blood, sweat and tears that go into one manuscript because we know that after they leave here, they’re going to be getting journals for the rest of their lives and to have an appreciation for the inquiry that goes into one manuscript and learn how to critically analyze articles and do literature reviews is the purpose of that.
Now, some students will sink their teeth into it a little bit more than others, but at the end of the day, everybody will have research on their resume, a.k.a. their residency application. So that’s another glow that might come out of that as well.
And I think the last pillar would be innovation. We are a university that prides itself on not being afraid to try new technology. And one of the features of our university program is how we incorporate Microsoft HoloLens into our anatomy program. We are the first university to partner with Microsoft to build HoloAnatomy, and it’s using the HoloLens goggles to complement our anatomy program. And so they do HoloAnatomy usually two days a week for two years. We do cadaveric dissection early on in their first year for two weeks. So really, we call it dissection bootcamp. But after that we incorporate HoloAnatomy after that. So they build on what they saw in dissection and using Microsoft HoloAnatomy. It’s amazing technology.
It’s basically a form of simulation? [8:55]
Yeah. It’s augmented reality. I had to learn this stuff. Virtual reality is where you put the goggles on, you can’t see anything, so you’re immersed into an environment virtually. Augmented reality is … These look like big sunglasses, so we can all see each other, but in front of us is a hologram of a humorous, of a thorax, of an entire person, whatever they want us to focus in on. You can walk around it, stick your head in it … You move in and out of it. It’s pretty amazing stuff. So we’re the first school to implement that and build it. And now other institutions across the country are using HoloAnatomy, like Northwestern is using it, TCU, down in Texas, Oxford University over in London or in England. Linda, I’ll tell you, I think in the next five or 10 years, you’re going to see more med schools incorporating VR, AR into their curricula. I know Kaiser Permanente has their own thing that they have incorporated into their curricula. So I think we’re going to see more schools … But that’s the thing in academia. Things can sometimes move slowly. We’re not one of those schools that wait sometimes. This is a very techy place too sometimes.
One thing I think you’ve innovated, I don’t know if you’re the first, but certainly somewhat uncommon, is that you have a stated MCAT cutoff. It’s a fairly low cutoff, but it’s a stated cutoff. Why have you chosen to provide it? [10:24]
Yeah. I talked to a couple of my friends at other med schools that have published cutoffs, and one of the reasons why Linda, was because in the application pool, we sometimes see people that have metrics that are not going to be viable as a candidate to our medical school. It’s just not going to get through admissions committee. And one of those metrics that we looked at very closely was the MCAT. And so ’23, ’24 was the first year that we implemented it .So let’s start low and see how it goes. And we might bump it up again this year, taking a closer look at it through the data as we wrap up this cycle. But it really, Linda, it came down to … And this is probably not the best phrase. But to say be cruel, to be kind. Because there’s just some people that when you see some of the metrics and MCAT scores that are below 495, they’re just not going to get through admissions committee.
And I would like to have gotten my hands on them to say, maybe save that money that you paid to check us off on AMCAS and then you paid us on the secondary. This stuff adds up quickly. I wish I could have gotten my hands and say, hold off. If you have plans to retake the MCAT, do it again another time. But I can tell you this is not going to get through admissions committee. As you know, it’s insanely competitive to apply to medical school. So that’s why we started that experiment. We piloted it last year to see how it goes and how did it affect our application numbers and it really didn’t that much. And so that’s something we’re going to continue to look at. It’s that cruel to be kind I think.
I think you’re being kind. I think you’re forcing a certain realism and are saving applicants’ money and time and heartache and sweat. I think it is more kindness than cruelty in there. [12:25]
Well, thank you for giving us a little validation from your perspective. It’s not easy, and like I said, we might bump it up again this year. We haven’t met. We’re going to be meeting it as a committee in the next couple of months to evaluate it again. The numbers matter. We try to do a holistic review, but at some point, there’s got to be a little bit of a line of do we think this student’s going to be successful in a rigorous curriculum because med school is not easy wherever you go. We have a crystal ball we have to look into and that’s the academic track record, and that’s what we have to go on when we’re doing evaluations.
I’m not criticizing other schools that don’t have the cutoff, but you have to wonder sometimes if not having the cutoff like that, admittedly, most students will look at the stat, and they’re not completely out to lunch in terms of their applications. But you have to wonder sometimes if they’re not pumping up their numbers for selfish reasons by not having a cutoff. So again, I don’t mean to be speaking badly of the other schools, but I think there is a service being provided by giving that cutoff. [13:26]
We had to talk about it with our finance department because they said, if we don’t bring these in, how much … And they were like, okay, we get what you’re trying to do, go ahead and do it, and then we’ll talk about it next spring and see what you want to do.
You’ve mentioned how research is a component of all three programs at Case Western. Is prior research a must-have or a nice-to-have when applying to any of the three programs, but in particular, the MD program? [14:10]
I’ll start with the university program, the four-year MD. And we state that research is not required to apply to that four-year program. We define research very broadly, and so we even have an essay in our secondary: Tell us about any research or scholarly work that you’ve done and what you learn from it. We also put examples. This could be an honors thesis that you did in undergrad or a capstone project. It doesn’t have to be medically related or clinically related or basic science. It could be you did a capstone project in literature or in anthropology or something. So just to show that you’ve done a … Because I think in all those you could clearly say they applied the scientific method, the scientific principles, and just to see what they took away from it. If somebody says, I have not done research, that’s okay. We have programming within our curriculum to teach students how to start to get research teed up.
So we have students that come to us every year who’ve not done formal research before. That said, though, I will say that in our matriculating class when the melt all happens and we get down to it, about 90 to 95% of our incoming students have had some research. And again, defined very broadly, honors thesis, capstone project, things like that. But there are students who haven’t had it and it’s because they’ve had other things going on, which was maybe in athletics or they were employed and working a lot, or they’re a non-traditional student and didn’t participate in research, but they’ve been doing a postbac programs. There’s always other stories going on within the application that tell us, oh, well … We don’t go looking for research, but we see it if they have it and if they don’t, we go, oh, well look at all the other cool stuff they were doing.
So we try to put that story together. When it comes to the learner program, the Cleveland Clinic program and the MSTP, you clearly have to have research.The ethos of those programs is very baked in research. They value longitudinal research. And what I mean by longitudinal is more than two summers of doing 10 weeks of summer research across an academic year or in a postgraduate situation where you’re doing maybe a year or two at the NIH or something at a hospital for a year or a year and a half. They need to know that you’re invested in this type of future lifestyle, the academics behind it, that you are into the ethos of those programs.
Is publication required for those programs? Presentation? [16:56]
That’s a good question, Linda. Prospective applicants ask me all the time, if I’m applying to MD-PhD, do I have to have a publication or if I’m applying to the Learner program, the answer is no, not necessarily. The way I contextualize it is what if you’re in a lab that’s doing a longitudinal study across years and you’re plopping in and you’re three because you’re a junior or senior or something, and they’re just not at the point where they’re ready to publish anything, but yet you’re working on a larger piece of that puzzle right now that’s going to contribute to the longitudinal work, but you’re just not they’re not there as a lab right now. We can’t penalize you for that.
That said, maybe the work that you do do in that lab can be turned into an abstract or a poster presentation when there is some results that you think are worthy of showing people that. So there’s that aspect. But we’re not a school that is going through and saying they have X number of publications, interview. And even so I know some of our scientists, if you have publications, they’ll look into them. Sometimes people fluff their application with some publications that are just like, oh, this was peer-reviewed. It can sometimes not be to your advantage if you’re just pumping out something just to say you have your name on a paper. Does that make sense?
Yes, it does. It makes a lot of sense for sure. One of the things I’ve noticed with applicants is they are very numbers-focused. A lot of times applicants say, I have so many hours of shadowing, is that enough? I have so many hours of clinical experience. Is that enough if I have so many hours of non-clinical volunteering, is that enough? So let’s start first with shadowing. Is shadowing required to apply to Case Western? And if so, how much is required? And what about virtual shadowing?
Okay. So we do not overtly say shadowing is required, but I think it’s written down there. It says strongly recommended. And a lot of med schools are in that camp I think. Because the simple matter is we need to know that you know what you’re getting yourself into. That’s what it boils down to in a way. And so while it’s strongly recommended, we don’t have a certain number of hours that we’re looking for, but it comes down to quality, not quantity. That said though, a little bit of nuance here, it should be more than eight hours. More than a working day to really spend some time with people. Maybe it’s a few physicians to see medicine through different lenses, whether it’s pediatrics and a oncology and cardiology, to really see a little bit of a scope of what the practice, lifestyle profession looks like. It should be a little more than the teens, I think. Because then this will come out in an interview situation, are they able to articulate some of the reflections and insights they gained from being in those clinics or in those situations or rubbing elbows with physicians? That’s where it’s going to come out, whether it was quality or quantity.
And serendipitously or coincidentally, yesterday I was working on some data some people were asking me for, and in the last entering class last year, the average number of shadowing hours for our entering class was 126.
Wow. That’s a lot. [20:46]
Yeah. The year prior to that 2022, it was also 126. So that was shadowing hours and then medically related. So whether that’s paid employment, medically related. Scribing is the new cottage industry for pre-medical students. It’s great. Get paid to be in the emergency department working with physicians, nurses, and all the staff and being in the room and behind the curtain with patients and seeing all that stuff. That’s amazing. What a great opportunity. And so I looked at that, those numbers, and the average number is 1,516 hours of paid medically related employment.
Medically-related volunteers came in at 376 hours. I think that’s who matriculated with us so it’s an average across 170. And we’re not looking for certain numbers that were like hit this average or below the average. This is not data that we give to our screeners to benchmark people. But I think it goes to show that our admissions committee values rich experiences, whether it’s shadowing medically related things, paid employment or volunteering. I think that demonstrates that our committee looks very closely at quality experiences and then clearly the students were able to articulate their observations and their understanding of what this profession means.
I was smiling when you mentioned quality, because I sometimes get questions as I mentioned earlier, “I have X hours of this, Y hours of that Z hours of that. I have this MCAT and I have that GPA. It’s all competitive. Why didn’t I get accepted?” We get a lot of re-applicants coming to us. And I’ll say, “Well, how did you present it? Did you bring your insights to it? Did you talk about what you learned? Did you talk about how you contributed? Did you talk about how you grew from the experience?” And they’re like, “I don’t know.” And of course then the next question is, “Do I have to rewrite my stuff?” [22:25]
Usually.
Right. If it didn’t work last time, why do you think it’s going to work this time? [23:09]
Right. Don’t slap the same thing out there next time.
Let’s say somebody was a scribe in different specialties. Are you still going to want to see shadowing? [23:48]
No. Maybe not. No.
Another thing that I’ve said many times is shadowing is a great way to start exploring clinical medicine. It’s a terrible way to end it. It’s not participatory. [24:04]
If I could add something to that too. You asked me about virtual shadowing. I want to mention since you mentioned what if somebody was a scribe, let’s say in emergency department and they were also an EMT. Now, I think or admissions committees could argue their scope or lens is very narrow on what medicine could look like because it’s at the pre-hospital and emergency stage. We’re in and out. I’m not devaluing it, but I think if an applicant has that profile, they may want to compliment it with more experience. If you’re working in an emergency department, you have access. You have a built-in network. Talk to people. Say, Hey, when cardiology comes down for the consult, neurology is being called down for a consult, get introduced or introduce yourself. Say, Hey, can I sometimes hang out with you guys? I’m pre-med blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So take advantage of that. But I think what somebody could argue, maybe their view is very narrow, what medicine really looks like if it’s just pre-hospital to emergency, wouldn’t it be nice to compliment it with something else? Pediatrics, neurology. Add one in whatever else you might be interested in or have a curiosity about. But that might add a little extra color then to the application and be able to then round out what that view can look like. And then again, being able to articulate that in an interview situation. I want to come back to virtual shadowing you asked me about.
I feel like Linda, we’re seeing as we get farther away from the pandemic applicants we’re seeing less and less of [virtual shadowing]. We haven’t really talked about it as a team, are we taking this or not? Because people had on their application. Now we’re getting to the point where people have virtual shadowing maybe from 2022 or 2021. And since then they’ve done other medically related activities. It was in the early stages, like 2021, 2020 were a little more of the virtual shadowing that we were ever seeing because it really wasn’t a thing prior to 2020. Now I think we’re seeing the back end of that and getting back to what traditional shadowing, medical related experiences can look like.
Let’s turn to the application itself. We’ve talked in general terms about some experiential requirements and nonrequirements. When you look at the secondary application specifically, what are you trying to glean from it that you don’t get from the primary? [26:53]
Well, as you know, the primary has one main personal statement, “Tell us why you’re here, why are you applying to medical school, why you’re interested in medicine?” So we are getting that viewpoint. There are things in our secondary essays that we’re trying to drill a little bit more down on. And overall what we’re looking for is our additional evidence of reflection, insight, the ability to self-reflect. Maybe we might be able to tap into a little bit of emotional intelligence, social intelligence through some evidence that they might be sharing with us within their responses. And also, we have some other questions, is there anything else you’d like to share with us? Here’s an optional essay. Is there anything else that wasn’t captured anywhere in your application up to this point or something new? We could see all kinds of stuff in there. People write all kinds of things.
And then we ask a question, if you’re doing a gap year, tell us what you’ve been doing because that may not be captured clearly in the primary. So we get some insight there. But I think Linda, an overarching theme of what we’re looking for is more insight, more evidence of self-reflection, maturity, backstory, maybe other things that couldn’t be captured in the primary, like some of their backstory or challenges they faced or overcome and things like that. So it’s a broad range, but it helps us though then try to see when we are doing the interview is the person we’re meeting in the interview, the same person we met in the essays. And a lot of times, there’s a correlation there. It’s interesting.
Do you ever wonder if there’s some growth that’s taken place between the time they submitted the application and maturation? [28:54]
Maybe.
Because you submit the primary maybe in June and you’re the secondary in July or August, and then you interview in February or March. [29:01]
Yeah. It could have grown a bit.
It could be a positive thing, not just negative. Obviously, if they can’t put a sentence together in person and the essays are beautifully written and articulate, you might wonder about something else going on. But sometimes it can be growth. Especially if they’re doing a lot of interesting things. Case Western has four cornerstones or themes in its curriculum, at least per the website. Research and scholarship, which we’ve touched on, clinical mastery, which I think you also touched on in terms of the small group learning, and then there’s leadership and civic professionalism. How do successful applicants show that they share those values via their application? [29:10]
Truth be told, our essay prompts aren’t written in a way that we’re looking for students to write themselves into those pillars that you just mentioned. We’re not. Our prompts are not written such that we’re looking for people to say, oh, they’re looking at leadership. I’m going to write all about leadership. We are not evaluating that way. So it’s broadly defined. We hope the applicants that we’re interested in are writing authentically about things that they’ve done, they’ve experienced, they’ve enjoyed, they’ve grown from not in a way that … And honestly, we’re not a mission-driven admissions office. My friend Leila Harrison at Washington State University, very mission-driven medical school. Spokane. Students from Washington staying in Washington, serving the residents of Washington state. We’re a little different than that. And so I think that we’re talking about creating a new value statement or mission statement for our medical education division that would then tie in admissions all the way through student affairs to graduation and curriculum. But our essay prompts are not written so that we’re looking for certain … They check all these boxes off in our four little pillars, and that’s our approach right now. Does that help?
What makes an applicant jump off the page for you? If it’s not mission fit, what is it? [31:36]
I almost went there when you were asking me a few minutes ago about essay prompts. I was just at a fair at University of Michigan a week ago, and I got that question I can’t tell you how many times. And it’s a really common question. I get it. People want to know what makes somebody stand out in this pool of applicants? They’re all really … For the most part, most applicants playing in med school are stars.
They’re impressive people. [32:09]
Yeah. And so the people are fascinated to know, what makes somebody be seen? And I’ll tell you what, I think it’s the way people write. It’s the way you write about things. And you mentioned it before when you’re talking about meeting with re-applicants. And they say, Linda, I’ve got this, this, and this got all these great things. Why didn’t I get an interview? And you’re like, well, how did you write about it? And this is where I think if an applicant is taking their time … And they need to understand, if you’re just getting into this process, there are 15 experience slots, if you will, and each one of them, you’re essentially going to have to write mini essays for each one. They give you 750 characters. And then of those 15, if you do 15 … I don’t think you have to do all 15. But you get to choose three of them to share more.
Why was this most meaningful? Why was this most influential? And they give you 1300 more characters. So you’re writing essays for a lot of these, and that’s a place where you could do a little storytelling or talk about how this challenged you and how you grew from it or how you’re still growing. That you know what? You’re not perfect and that’s okay to say, I had this challenged me and I’m still working on it. This has been hard, but it’s pushing me. It’s pushed me. And I think that’s where … And some students are really good at finding their writing voice. And there’s sometimes Linda, when I’m reading these applications, gosh, you feel like you’re hearing a conversation from somebody. Somebody is telling you about themselves in a way they write. It’s enjoyable to read.
Another common question, I guess is like, what’s the best application you’ve ever read? And I’ve read thousands of these. I’ve been here for almost 19 years, man. I can’t remember everything. But you remember the feelings of being like, whoa, that was really well written. And then when I interview somebody and I read their application to prep for it, and I really like … I’ll tell them in the first five minutes I’ve met them, I have to tell you, you wrote an amazing application. I enjoyed reading it. And I tell them that because I know how much time that went into that. And I think they need to hear that somebody appreciated their work and enjoyed the way they wrote because I know they put a lot of effort into it. You should acknowledge that to them. And I do. I like doing that. People are usually very flattered and stunned, I think at first.
They do put a lot of effort into it. There’s no question. [34:48]
It takes a lot of time to do AMCAS.
I would say to Linda, if could tack onto that there. Sometimes I do this when I give talks to pre-medical students. Like, all right … Because people ask, how do you stand out? I’m like, okay, in the group who’s done shadowing, raise your hand. Whole room will raise their hand. Who’s done a little bit of research? Who’s volunteered raise your hand. How about tutoring, raise your hand. There’s a profile and that’s okay of a pre-medical student. There are certain things you’re doing to explore to get here. So everybody that might have a similar profile, then how do you stand out?
It comes down to the writing. How will you share what you’ve done in these things? And that’s what will make it really pop.
Just to add to what you said. I also would sometimes give a presentation and say, how many of you have volunteered? Hands go up. How many of you have shadowed? Hands go up. How many of you have researched? Hands go up. And then I’ll say, okay, how many of you have volunteered in a pediatric hematology oncology playroom? How many of you have worked at a soup kitchen in a particular neighborhood of Chicago? I’m from Los Angeles. I start getting much more specific. And suddenly, you either have no hands going up or one hand going up. And then, if they add their insights to that specific experience, you have an individual.
You’re drilling down.
What makes for a great interview? [37:04]
Interviewing can be an art. It’s not easy. It’s not easy. It can be difficult for some people. One, it’s hard sometimes. A lot of people aren’t used to talking about themselves. Some people that’s not in their nature. And so I think that is something first to become comfortable with. And that comes from a little bit of practice, a little bit of practice. Because the applicant should be prepared to talk about 75% of the time. So that’s a lot of talking on their end. And I think what makes for a good interview is if it feels conversational versus Q&A question, answer, question … Grilling. When we are training our interviewers, that’s one of the things we try to emphasize to them. We’re trying to get to know the person on the other end of Zoom here, not to grill them. They’re already going to be nervous. This is high stake stuff.
So we were trying to meet their authentic self of who’s showing up today, not create a big stress bag out of them and try to test them. That’s not our purpose here. So we try to train our interviews to make the questions that we have conversational. Hopefully that sets the stage so that the applicant can settle in a little bit and then start to have what should feel like conversational. But also having that ability to share insights, share some more of those reflections so that there’s substantive responses. That’s what makes for a good interview. Also, when I can learn something about them that I didn’t read in their application. There are some times when I’m interviewing a candidate and the stories that they tell and share are interesting, but it’s the same stuff I read in their application. And so sometimes you would leave the interview feeling like, okay, well I’ve met them and they were really nice and they communicated well, but I didn’t learn any new stories or anything new about them because they shared the same things they shared in their application. So if somebody can complement and add into some special sauce into their interview, share something new about themselves that I don’t already know, and somehow infuse it with some different storytelling, that makes an interesting interview.
It also shows them as dynamic, growing human beings. [39:41]
I have more stories to tell, not just those three that were in my application.
That’s a great tip. Great tip. Thank you. Do you have any plans to require a situational judgment test? [39:50]
We dabbled with it a couple of years ago, and we dabbled with CASPer. That was about three years ago now. And we didn’t get out of it what I thought we thought we were looking for in it, so we decided to pause on it. And then we looked closely at the AAMC’s SJT PREview and again, we’ve paused on that too. Both myself and Dr. Mehta, my dean, have been involved in the testing and creation of PREview as content experts. It was really interesting, and I think they have a good approach. I like the questions they ask and things. I think one thing we learned is that if we’re going to make an applicant go through that process, we need to be able to tie it to something within our admissions process, whether it’s tying it to something within our curriculum where we have something where we can measure like, oh, somebody has this PREview score and it means something in our curriculum here. We want to be able to have something measurable because it’s not free and it takes students time to do this.
And if we’re going to ask a student and an applicant to do this, we want to make it meaningful, not just a, oh, we’re just going to look at it. Maybe we’ll look at it, maybe we won’t look at it. I don’t know. We want to make sure we’re tying something to it so that it has purpose.
So not right now. We still haven’t gone down that back down that road yet.
What is Case Western’s position in terms of updates at different points in the application process? Some schools encourage updates. Some schools only after interview, some only if waitlisted. What’s Case Western’s position? [41:23]
It’s program-specific. MSTP will accept updates. And I think it’s important for that applicant cohort because sometimes they have research updates that are coming in throughout the application cycle that they want to share. That makes sense. For the university program in our Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, we do not accept updates at the time of application or during the application process unless you’re invited for an interview. And the reason why is look, MSTP, they get like 400 applications. University program, we got close to 7,800 applications last year, college program got about 2000 applications. I worry that if we open that door to like, Hey, send us updates … It already takes a long time to screen these applications. I know applicants are sometimes I’ve been complete since July 16th and I haven’t heard from you. Do you remember how much time it took for you to put that application together? It takes us a long time to read them.
So you want us to take our time and being thorough and read these thoughtfully. I worry that if we open the gates of send us updates and then people are uploading all kinds of stuff into the application, that’s going to slow down our screening process. The application already provides enough breadth and depth for us to render a decision. I don’t need that one more letter of recommendation. I don’t need that one more update that you got an A in a class or you got a poster or something. You’ve given us so much, almost your entire academic and personal life history and secondary applications and three or five letters of recommendation to render decision, we’re good. But after you’ve been invited to interview, then we allow students to send us updates throughout then the rest of the process, whether they’re waitlisted. So we will take updates after that for the university program.
What advice do you have for the applicant who is currently waitlisted at Case Western? [43:46]
We’re a school that likes to hear from people. Stay in touch with us. We send periodic emails out to our waitlist candidates, just checking in and saying, Hey, if you’re still interested, do you have the opportunity to share with us that information if anything new has come up that you want to tell us about? Because when we get to the point where the end of April, beginning of May, when we’re watching our class come together, and if we dip below our class target, which we’ve done every year since I’ve been here, we always go to our alternate list, our wait list. We want to be thoughtful in who we’re contacting.
We don’t just shotgun out a bunch of acceptances and wait and see who we hear back from because these are now we’re at the point where it’s one-to-one. And so we don’t want to get then above our target so we want to be one-to-one. If somebody’s been in touch with us and they’ve expressed interest and that thing, well then … We don’t rank our alternate list, but we have … I don’t want to get too deep in the weeds on how it works. But anyway, we have some flexibility from our admissions committee into whom we can look at for our alternate list. But yeah. Staying in touch with us is great. It’s invited.
The opening up of AMCAS is a few weeks away and the beginning of the next application cycle is looming. This show will air in April. What words of wisdom do you have for applicants planning to apply in this upcoming cycle? [45:19]
Yeah, this came up last week when I said it was at the University of Michigan. Somebody said, well, I plan on submitting on the first day in June when it’s available. And I said, okay, hang on a second. Just so you know, when the submit button becomes available on whatever, it’s June 2nd or something like that, nobody gets a gold star if you submit at 12:01 on June 2nd to med school. You can post it on Instagram or whatever, but nobody gets a gold star for that because here’s what happens. You can submit it on June 1st or June 2nd, and then there’s a verification process timeline. So AMCAS has got to verify the transcripts that you send to them and match it up with the grades that you put in. That could take three or four weeks. Sometimes two to four weeks. But even if you’re verified within three weeks, we’re not going to get your application until the end of June anyway. There is a date like June 29th when any verified application has been targeted to your school will be dropped into our database then. So there’s no advantage in my mind to rush to get your application submitted at 12:01 because then you can say you did it, but maybe the quality of it might’ve been rushed so that you could just do it and say that you submit it on the very first day. It’s going to sit there for three and a half, four weeks.
So my advice to people is submit when you feel like it is tip-top shape. It is sparkling. You’ve polished it, and it is the best thing you could put in front of people. Whether that’s on June 2nd or June 11th or June 15th. I think if we’re getting a little deeper into the summer, like if we’re getting into August, September-ish, that’s getting late for me because then it’s getting secondary turned around and stuff. It’s getting a little late for me, my comfortable level in the application process. But look, if you’re applying on June 21st or something, I just feel like … And if that’s when you feel ready to click submit and you’re just like chef’s kiss, then that’s when you should do it. That would be my number one tip for people.
Just before you click submit, whenever that is, go through that application with a fine tooth comb, looking for grammar mistakes, looking for misspellings because we will scrutinize these things. You could have the most amazing, I think, experiences to share with people, but if it’s poorly written and it has grammatical errors and poor punctuation and misspellings, people are going to say, this is a sloppy, is this their best work? I don’t know about you, Linda, but I want a detail oriented physician. Details matter. And so this is what you’re presenting to people. Is this your best work? And it’s sloppy? I don’t think so. That may be something to really think about. Have other people read it. Run it through all kinds of grammar checks. Read it out loud. Read it out loud. Do all the scans, checks, things that you can think of, have other people read it, looking for things. You want this to be just your best work, so you’re really putting your best self out there. So that would be my big tip.
Tell us about your podcast, All Access Med School Admissions podcast. It’s a great podcast. [49:16]
Oh, thank you. I wish I had more time to do it. This admission stuff gets in the way sometimes. It’s really become a hobby, but I do get a little time to work on it, but I wish I had more time. It’s been awesome. I get to meet some amazing people. I’ve made new friends across the country and to hear them open up about their school. And then I hear from … I’ve been doing it for five years now, and now it’s crazy that I’ve had applicants who … I started listening to this 2019, and now I’m coming to med school. Listening for four years, five years. It blows me away. It freaks me out a little bit too. It’s pretty wild. You probably get the same responses too. It really is heartwarming to hear from people that they said it helped them in some way, or it brought a school on their radar that would’ve never thought about before, and they decided to apply to it, and they ended up going there.
It really has gone beyond what ever expected it would to go. The direction and the amount of people that listen to it, I’ve not gotten used to that. And so I hope to get more time this year, 2024. I’ve been in grad school and business school since last year. January of last year, so I’m graduating in May. I’ve had to put up a lot of boundaries on outside non-work things, just because always doing homework or working on a paper. So usually I do podcasty stuff on my weekends or sitting on the couch at night, and I haven’t had that time. So I’m looking forward to getting back on the podcast horse. I got a couple ideas brewing for some future things, but it’s just working in the time. But thank you for asking. It really is enjoyable.
I feel like I have a growth mindset and to teach myself and learn how to do this stuff. How to do audio editing and how to make it all work and stuff like that, and find music and make it sound cool. I like that stuff. So I’m nerdy like that.
I like the talking to people part. The technical stuff, I leave to others, but the talking to people is great. And I agree with you having applicants say that they found the podcast helpful or sometimes having schools say … I talk to admissions directors and they say, I heard from interviewees that they listened to my podcast and they found it really, really helpful. And then they’re very happy to come back on a second time, which is great as far as I’m concerned. [51:47]
Yeah. I’ve gotten the same comments from my friends. They say, oh my God, we met the student and they said, they applied to me because your thing. I’m like, yeah, well, you’re welcome. It was fun.
What would you have liked me to ask you? [52:21]
What comes to mind, Linda, is what’s the culture here at Case Western?
Because that’s something that I think is … I worry sometimes about writing that on a website about what the culture is because maybe it might come across as contrived or it’s like, this is just a shiny website and they’re just saying this. We’re continuing to do interviews virtually for a number of reasons. And it comes down to logistics locally for our interviewers to not have to come to campus and find parking that stuff. But also financially for applicants that are saving tons of money and not having to travel around the country. But there’s one trade off that I miss, and that is the interview day energy. And our applicants are not getting to feel like what a regular day is here. Seeing current students in their live medical students in the wild doing their thing, in their learning environments and feeling that energy and that culture. Seeing the students smiling and laughing and looks like they have good time and their friends and stuff. So we’re missing that piece.
And so when applicants ask me what’s the culture there? I am excited to tell them because they’re maybe missing that until they come for maybe an admitted student day thing. I think people are pleasantly surprised to hear it’s laid back here. They work hard. It’s med school, they’re still working hard. I think I’ve heard from prospective students coming to us, I can’t believe how happy your students are. And they seem balanced. And I think it’s a way because our curriculum is structured in a way such that it’s not eight to five every day. And in working in these small, intimate learning environments, you get to know people well. You’re going to see people on good days and not so good days when they got something going on at home or something like that. And so you become a tight-knit group, or at least you become invested in one a little bit more. I’m not going to go as far to say everybody’s best friends and they hold hands and skip and sing in the hallways, but you get to know each other pretty well. And I think that comes down to relationships and having a vested interest in one another’s success.
People here are like down earth kind, cool, interesting, polite. And the culture here really starts at our vice dean’s level. Cultures come from behaviors, and it’s the way you behave, the thing that sets our culture. And that is what you see here is what we … It’s real. It’s not phony. And so I think you can come here and feel like you belong. People are going to welcome you, and it’s genuine.
That’s wonderful. Where can listeners learn more about Case Western Reserve University College of Medicine? [55:37]
You’ll find us at https://case.edu/medicine/, and you can dig deep. And you can find us on, like you said, on my podcast. We have a couple podcast episodes about our school specifically, but they can check that out too. Thank you for asking and giving me the opportunity to share a little bit about who we are and what we have to offer.
Relevant Links:
- Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
- All Access Podcast
- Accepted’s Med School Quiz
- Medical School Reapplicant Advice: 6 Tips for Success, a free guide
Related Shows:
- Tulane Medical School: How to Get In, podcast Episode 569
- Start Medical School in 2025 How to Get Accepted This Year, podcast episode 567
- All You Need to Know about the New Frist College of Medicine, podcast Episode 558
- Applying to Medical School? The Pre-Med Competencies are What You Must Show, podcast Episode 554
- Are you rushing to attend Rush Medical College?, podcast Episode 551
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