Hey everyone, just wanted to check in here. I'll be attending Mayo Medical School as an MS1 this upcoming year and wanted to wish you all good luck on this application cycle. Mayo definitely had the most exciting interview and I was blown away by how amazing this institution is, the abundance of resources, and the unmatched level of friendliness of everyone I met here. I know there are a few seasoned students following this thread, so feel free to ask any questions related to how you can better prepare yourself in this application process to Mayo.
Also, I wanted to insert some helpful information here that was compiled from other threads in years past so that you can have a better prepare yourself (and get excited!!) with applying here. I take no credit for this information as I'm just transferring it from last year to here for easier access and before this thread becomes too large.
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Quoted from: forsparta
Compilation of information from last year's Mayo thread. I do not state I wrote any of this (main authors: Snuke, Nerday Shortay, Icanhazcheeseburger [sp], Wisco1, ect.) and do not guarantee accuracy of any statements. The views expressed are not in association with the Mayo Medical School (MMS) and can not be used as factual evidence.
However, I believe it is useful
Mayo does not have a secondary, unless they change from past years. You send in your primary, Mayo reviews it, and determines whether to request LOR's from you. Once they have requested your LOR's and you send them, you are reviewed again for an interview spot.
I'll leave the other questions about the small class size, Rochester, etc., for current students who would be more qualified to answer. I will say that from what I've learned through the interview process and second look weekend that Mayo is as awesome as it sounds on paper. Financial aid is great, opportunities are unlimited practically, curriculum is great with integrated "off" time between course blocks....could go on and on.
I'm not sure about a pre-sceen, but I do know that Mayo looks at MUCH more than MCAT and GPA. The second of half of your post is not exactly accurate. Everyone who applies gets a request for money, but this means nothing about your chances of interview. Once they receive your money, they begin to review your application (primarily activities) in deciding whether to request letters from you (you should not automatically send letters to them when you pay). Here's some numbers that have been posted in previous years' threads:
4000 apply
800 get LOR requests
250-300 get interviews
~72 are offered acceptances (including from alternate list)
personal statement is not read until after LORs are received.
42 MD-only spots available.
There's a minimum screen (LizzyM score of 60 = GPA * 10 + MCAT) to get the application looked at by Mayo. I assume that if you get the LOR request, you've passed that screen.
M1 schedule consists of morning lecture/lab from 8AM-noon. Then we have "Basic Doctoring" (physical exam skills and history taking, etc) 1-2 days per week in the afternoons from 1-5. The majority of the afternoons are free.
M2 year is reversed with daily lecture/lab in the afternoons.
Over the course of the first two calendar years, you have a total of 30 weeks of time alotted for selective. 18 of those weeks have to be spent doing a selective (=20 hours/wk of professional enrichment) and 12 of them are "free time". You can go home and do a shadowing experience if you want. Do your 20 hours of shadowing in the week and the rest of the time you can spend with family or do whatever you want.
I have only been in Rochester for a month now but I am not worried about it. Everyone here is very close knit and we hang out alot together. There is plenty to do in Rochester, and if you get bored, the Twin Cities are less than 90 minutes away.
We haven't really talked much about FL/AZ rotations yet, but from what I have heard you are able to do all of your rotations away if you choose, but that it is not a wise idea. The recommendation is to do the rotation in specialties that you're interested in in Rochester because that's where the "best experience" is. Do the ones that are less important to you away from Rochester. Many students, for example, will choose to do surgery rotation away if they don't have interest in surgery.
Oh man, where to start. Really, I just had an amazing incredible experience.
The interview day is long, but it seriously feels short. Everyone is incredibly nice, from admin people to MDs to students to random people on the street. All the students are blissfully happy (not just my hosts or the people running the tours. I think we met almost half the class, and not a single one - when pressed - could think of a major shortcoming to the school), and many of them turned down big names to go to Mayo. Amongst them: Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, UCSF, Wash U.
The interview day starts in the student center/admissions office. It's a small building across from the Gonda, rather out of place with the rest of the Mayo buildings because it's a renovated library. Very handsome inside, too. Gina is incredibly nice, and she did the orientation, which was largely the same video posted earlier and on the website. Then we met with the assistant dean of Academic and Student Affairs, then the Director of the Office of Diversity. Each of the talks were pretty short, which was nice. Then half of us had a 30 minute interview, the other half 30 minutes of down-time, then we switched. The ice was pretty much broken already because we'd met with our student hosts the night before to have dinner (and some of us helped the Birthday Baking Committee bake cupcakes!).
Then we had a tour of the Medical School. The Plummer building (library) is gorgeous, and we traipsed through the pedestrian subway, which is also very nice, and visited a few floors of the Gonda building. The Gonda building/Mayo Clinic is really quite majestic on the inside - marble and comfortable chairs everywhere, and someone was usually playing the grand piano. The peds floor is amazing - almost makes me want to be a pediatrician - and is designed for kids and to be very kid-friendly with curves and colors and low furniture everywhere.
Then lunch, then another interview/break, in which a few of us walked to the gym (which is a-MAZING and humongous) and had a tour (you get free membership your first two years). Then it was a short meeting with The Associate dean of Academic Affairs and a Dr. on the Admissions Committee chair.
Overall, in every possible aspect, it was incredible. Like I said, everyone is blissfully happy. One of my student hosts compared Mayo to a utopia, and it truly is of a kind. They make their own little world here, and they run it immaculately. Everything is literally for the patient.
And that's the key. Mayo-wear (what they call professional suit attire for when with patients) is to reduce the boundaries between patient and doctor. Everything is set up to make the patient more comfortable/for the patient's benefit.
The class size is, well, intimate. Everyone knows everyone and everyone's business, so if you aren't comfortable with that, that could be a problem. The small size, however, allows for opportunities that you can't have otherwise. In gross anatomy, they have a radiologist (because they CT the cadavers first), two surgeons expert in the field of whatever you're dissecting, and enough TAs to cover the rest of the tables. If you want to shadow someone, all you do is email them and set it up. There are a few set selectives, but people make up their own based on their interests, or if they want to travel somewhere, they do the hours of serving the underserved the first week and enjoy themselves the second week.
Some advice: Yes, Rochester really is small. Downtown takes up about a street. You're going to have to either get over it or don't interview. Really, it's small, and it takes about 90 minutes to get there from Minneapolis.
While the weather was great when I was here, it does get to -40 F.
When people are talking to you, pay attention. I had the Director of Diversity for my first interview, and I was able to use some of his key words and points as we talked.
The interviews are really really low stress. The only stress is what you put on yourself. Both of my interviews started with 'tell me about yourself,' and you get to pretty much direct it from there. They are anticipating 4000 applications for the 42 MD spots. They will give out 1200-1300 LOR, 250-280+ interviews, and 60-70 acceptances.
The last interview day is December 12th, and the first day they will look at interviewers and rank them is September 20th.
Gina said it would be more like just over 280 interviews this year. The 250-270 is a general amount the past few years, but this one will be a bit more.
We had no indication until we walked into the room and found our name cards with a Mayo folder that contained our itinerary for the day (along with some lovely resources).
I had one good interviewer, and one amazing, but pretty much everyone was very happy with who interviewed them. From what Gina was saying, some people fight to be scheduled to do interviews - especially the Director of Diversity, even though he has so much to do anyway, apparently.
And really, I just had this experience as I was eating out with my hosts - their friends would come up, see that we were prospectives, and the first thing out of their mouth was, 'you know, they treat us so well here.' It's delightfully amazing. Mayo will only send LOR requests if you move on to that step. That you have not received that email means only that: you have not moved on. If your primary is verified and your LORs sent out on the 30th, you have several weeks before you start to worry about if you're rejected, and even then - I know LeoGer waited 7 weeks between LOR request and interview.
Earlier, about 2-3 weeks was normal between fee request and LOR request. Now, later in the season, it might take even longer, as they have just started interviewing.
So yes, you will get a LOR request if Mayo wants to see them. Until they send that email, they're just looking at your stats and ECs, not even your PS. Some are emergency medicine, pediatrics, medical clowning, two medical mission trips to Honduras, LGBT/HIV medicine in South Beach, Florida, psychiatry, research (x2), music therapy (upcoming), infectious disease. Mine are mostly medical, but the music therapy one is self-designed and mainly aimed at improving my repertoire/technique on the ukulele (no joke). I do play music every week in the main lobby at Mayo, but the school has nothing to do with this and it isn't technically medical in any way. I know other students have done writing selectives, volunteering selectives (not necessarily with medical organizations). You just have to explain what the selective will do for your career - bettering yourself as a person, even in non-medical ways, will ultimately make you a better doctor. They know that.
Mayo ranks each person following their interviews, then sends an email informing each applicant that they've been ranked. You don't know what rank you are (1-5, 1 being best), but I'm not sure how stringently they follow it, since they can pull a 2 in front of a 1 from the waitlist (leading people to believe that Mayo is comprising its class of people with certain characteristics, i.e. # athletes, # muscians, etc.)
To share an I love Mayo moment with you: I spent yesterday afternoon working with a professional actor on improv comedy skills...the idea being that extremely active listening (as is necessary for improv and scene handoffs) leads to a more successful first 20-30 seconds of entering a patient room. Several of my classmates are camping tonight to prep for a mass-casualty wilderness survival experience, another is delivering babies in rural Arizona, and one is on his way to a wedding this weekend. And, if it all works out, we'll come together next Monday to play another kickball game. What an absolutely fantastic way to study medicine...if you are going to learn 46,000 new words and phrases during the first two years of school you might as well have some fun along the way! oday during pediatric selective:
- Wake up, have coffee until 805am(others in the class doing this selective are out shadowing today in anything from gen peds to peds derm/ED/surg/etc.
- Meet Senior Sage (longitudinal geriatrics program) mentor for breakfast, interview and writeup afterwards--unrelated to selective but i had the morning free
- Lunch with peds residency director
- Neonatal resuscitation and umbilical line placement lab in simulator center from 1300-1530
...selective schedules vary widely though...so a more typical class day:
1st year:
8-12 a.m. is lecture/lab/group time. Some days we're out earlier.
12-1: Lunch/Free...usually time for interest group meetings, mentor meetings, attending grand rounds, interviewee lunches, etc.
1-5: Occasional afternoon activities (doctoring coursework, longitudinal development curriculum, volunteer programs, history taking skills, etc.)---on average over the year probably 2-3 afternoons a week have afternoons booked.
2nd year: essentially the reverse of above
3rd and 4th year: as with any medical school, mostly dedicated to time out on the wards so you could have days that are 24-36 hours long and others that are a basic outpatient clinic. Highly variable. Maybe. You might make it into the first ranking meeting after your interview, but if both of your interviewers are not present, you will not be discussed and you will not be ranked. This happened to me.
In addition, there might be a separate acceptance committee that meets at a different time than the ranking (like if they rank on Friday but accept on Thursday). Or they rank and accept at the same one. I have no clue about that, but it's a possibility.
Bottom line: you must be ranked before you can get a decision, and there's no telling when that will happen, could be a week, could be more. If you interview on the 7th, you'll definitely hear something before the end of the month, but it is possible that you'll miss the initial acceptances/decisions on the 17th. There's no way to tell at this point.
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And here's a post from a Mayo graduate who is now a resident. Quoted from wannadoctor
This is from the perspective of someone who attended Mayo Medical School and is now a resident at one of the residency programs often cited as "the big 4 (UCSF/MGH/BWH/JHU)" on these boards.
Reasons why Mayo is fantastic for medical school:
1) Tuition: The most you could pay for tuition was approximately $8,000 a year (many people received full rides). There were two years when they emailed the medical school and informed us everyone would be receiving a full scholarship. Average debt approximately $60,000.
- Once you're a resident and realize how much interest accumulates on even the "average medical student debt of a $160,000," you appreciate this even more. Many of my colleagues are making career decisions based on finances.
2) Selectives: Mayo's first two years are structured such that you have a "block" of 6 weeks where you focus on a topic (i.e. in second year cardiovascular system, GI system), and then have two weeks for "selectives" You receive a $5,000 travel budget to use during selecties.
- This was amazing. It made medical school so painless. Essentially, you work hard for six weeks and then have 2 weeks of selective to do research casually, travel and work abroad. Selectives can be as structured as you want them to be. But honestly, they're essentially a break for you to do what you love, enhance your resume, or just rest.
- The majority of students had done clinical work (and sometimes non-clinical) in at least 1-2 countries courtesy of this by the end of second year (work in Haiti, Uganda, South Africa, Kenya, India etc...).
3) Teaching: I honestly think this is what really makes Mayo unique. The classes are extremely clinically oriented. There are no PhD's or MD/PhD research gurus who come in and lecture you on the nuances of their research. Our faculty goes through a huge screening process as many clinicians at Mayo want to be involved in education. Evaluations of faculty are used to screen out "bad apples." Thus, you end up with professors who are teaching because they want to, love to, and excel at it. In addition to this, the faculty that teach various blocks discuss and integrate their curriculum. This avoids redundancy and minutia from being taught.
- The medical students who I work with now (from a "top 5 medical school") often comment on how frustrating it is to have "famous research faculty" come in and lecture for an hour about something not relevant. At the end of the day, I believe the reason Mayo is NOT like this is because 1) The institution as a whole is clinically oriented (and clinical research oriented) and not as basic science oriented as top NE places (which can be a con depending on what you want to do).
4) Research: Whether it be clinical or basic science (though basic science not as strong), it is easy to do research. Mayo DOES have a 3 month research requirement built into third year (which is an AMAZING break). The year I graduated, out of the approximately 40 of us, >than half had more than 2 published papers (not counting abstracts, presentations etc..). There were a few of us that had published >10 papers by the end of medical school, and most in respected, high impact journals. At the end of the day, because there are so few Mayo medical students and Mayo provides incentives for faculty to publish papers with medical students (faster track to professorship), research and publishing is very accessible.
4) The system at Mayo is amazing. It's seamless. It is truly cost effective, efficient, and patient-oriented. You REALLY appreciate this as a 3rd year, 4th year, but most importantly as a patient. While I LOVE the institution that I currently am at for completely different reasons (again a "big 4" residency), I remember being dumbfounded my intern year by how inefficient, slow, and difficult the system at this "top hospital" was... more importantly, how these inefficiencies often led to patient errors.
5) Other random perks: Can do an MD/JD at ASU in 2 years. Mayo will pay for it, you don't have to take the LSAT. Mayo will also give you $10,000 if you pursue another degree (MPH etc...) at any other institution (people have left to do MBA's, MPH's, Master's at Oxford/Cambridge, Master's in fashion design, Master's in Journalism). At the end of a six week block, faculty will take you out or invite the class over to their place for dinners/drinks. The student body is MUCH MORE diverse in terms of where Mayo pulls students from (i.e. it is not IVY league undergrad heavy).
CONS:
1) ROCHESTER: This is a HUGE con. After applying to medical schools, I ended up narrowing down my choice of schools to Mayo vs. UCLA vs. Harvard vs. U of Chicago. All three other programs were in superior cities. While I loved my classmates at Mayo, and that made it fun, being in chicago/boston/LA would have been amazing. The truth is who you're with can make or break the experience. Mayo tends to pick a really interesting and fantastic group of people, but at the end of the day, you're in a city with limited bar/restaurant options. It also gets REALLY cold in the winter. Rochester sucks, but your classmates can make it fun. At the end of the day, I had no regrets as I came out of Mayo with no debt, really happy with my education, and when it came down to residency applications, received numerous "ranked to match calls" from top programs and matched at my top choice in an awesome city. I was also told that if I ever wanted to return for fellowship/faculty that there would be an open door. Some of the highest ranked medical schools in the country are AWFUL to be junior faculty at (in terms of pay, pressure to produce basic science research), thus it is nice to have the option to go back to an institution that you know will treat you well.
2) SMALL CLASS SIZE: While this is a pro in terms of teaching, can be a huge con if you want to meets tons of new people all the time.
3) Not university affiliated: No sports to go to, no college campus, just the Mayo campus.
4) At residency interviews, other "top places" that I interviewed were intrigued by my medical school experience and by what Mayo was like. While many Mayo Med Students that want to match at top NE/West coast places do, alot end up staying at Mayo. Thus, Mayo has less of an incestuous relationship with the UCSF, Harvards, Hopkins, Penn etc... (if you're looking to be streamlined into one of those places). My year, 30% of us ended matching at one of those institutes (which is quite high).
5) Basic science research: First of, Mayo does have a significant amount of basic science research going on that I would never scoff at. However, it is not as vast as the other "highly ranked" institutes. Thus, if you KNOW you want to be a basic science researcher, go to hopkins, Harvard, UCSF etc... you'll have way more opportunity there.
Obvious I'm biased, but I absolutely loved my medical school experience and am really grateful for all the opportunities I was given to excel at Mayo. Keep in mind though that Rochester blows, and if being in a big city = being happy for you, I would not recommend coming to Mayo.
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