This is a rant. There is nothing at all to do with being happy, thankful, peaceful, or even in a good mood. It has everything to do with stress and frustration. You have been dutifully warned. Read on at your own risk.
As most of you have gleaned from the writings on this site, I am a senior pre-med student and have been working on my applications for medical school for the past six months or so. What you may not know is that I have been heading towards medical school since the age of five (go ask my mom for verification). I’ve always know that this is what I was meant to do and I’ve worked my schooling both in high school and college towards that goal.
I’ve never really been a good standardized test taker when it came to mathematics; I’ve always been verbally oriented and my tests have always been extremely lopsided because of this. I know this is a weak spot for me academically so when I was studying for the MCAT I tended to focus primarily on the more math related sections: Physics and Chemistry. I studied for months and took two or three practice tests beforehand (I was also getting my tush in shape for sitting on it for an 8 1/2 hour test…but that’s beside the point).
When I got my results back from the test, I scored above average on the two word sections and below average on the math section. I was disappointed but I knew that I had done my best. Overall, my score of 24M was right in the middle as far as the average test grades. Not great, but not horrible either, so I started working on my online application. The online app. took me a month and a half to complete and cost $340.
A couple of months after school began I started receiving stuff from the schools that I had applied to: secondary apps, emails, and two rejection letters. I had four schools wanting secondary applications, which I completed on November 26th and sent of with another $290 gone from my bank account. I never received any word from one of the schools and was encouraged to send them an email asking “what was going on”, which I did and got a response to the effect that “we’re still looking at you.” So I started the waiting game.
I received another letter in the mail today from the school that hadn’t sent any word initially; I am not accepted. Even though the rejection doesn’t feel very nice, I tend to be more frustrated with these letters than anything because of how they’re worded. For example:
Dear Ms. E:
The Committee on Admissions for the College of Medicine has conpleted its review and evaluation of your credentials for the class entering in August 2005. As we typically receive over 1,000 applications for the 150 class positions, th competition for admission is particularly intense. As a result, we are not able to accept many fine students who apply.
After a thorough review of your application, the Committee concluded it was unable to offer you a position in the 2005 entering class. To be sure, we greatly appreciate your efforts in preparing and submitting your application and congratulate you on your accomplishments to date. As a member of a highly competitive group of applicants we thank you for your interest in ____________.
Should you have any questions, please contact our office at (xxx)xxx-xxxx. You have our best wishes for success in the ultimate achievement of your career goals.
What irritates me the most is the glossy, pseudoconcern about my feelings. I don’t want to have to read a bunch of fluff that translates to “hey there, we had too many applicants for too few positions and you didn’t make the cut, have a nice day.” Sure I’ll get mad but I’ll get over it. I’d rather have it blunt than coated syrup. Also, if you’re going to say “thanks, but no thanks” at least tell me where I went wrong and how I can improve my applications for the future. Every rejection letter I’ve received was like this one, and none of them ever bothered to tell me how I could improve. That’s really really irritating.
Ok, I’m done for now. I have a biochemistry exam tomorrow to study for. Gee, I wish I could take a nap.
neumatikos 
It’s all about political correctness
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or maybe they actually care.
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I don’t think they actually care. Maybe in a generic “we sure wish everybody who wanted to could go to medical school” sense but not in a “man, I wish we could have accepted *her*!” sense. Mostly they’re afraid of lawsuits that would ensue if they gave out their–fully human–criteria for accepting applicants.
It’s a good policy for protecting the school, but not necessarily for benefiting the applicant. A compassion that was truly interested in benefiting the applicant would go to great measures to explain precisely what they were looking for, and precisely why she didn’t measure up.
The very wording of the rejection indicates that they were more interested in protecting the school than in helping the applicants they don’t accept. The line about “we only had 125 slots and we couldn’t fit everybody in” is a lie. If a school magically gets 126 applicants who are all so perfect that it hurts just to think about not accepting all of them, believe me, they’ll make an exception. But the truth is, they have 125 slots, and also a list of criteria. Eveyone who doesn’t get accepted is less than perfect on some of those criteria in somebody’s eyes. Failure to reveal those criteria is an effort to protect the school at the expense of the applicant.
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That, and the very intuitive form letter. Take a spreadsheet listing 200 names and a few select details and merge it with the canned form letter and out comes the “custom” letter for 200 different people. If a printer can print 10 pages per minute, then a 20 minute coffee break later and your done. In such a modern convienience, there is no room for individual feedback and concern…
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