Admissions Straight Talk

Early patient exposure and the option to pursue research or an additional degree during the program's third year, make Duke University Med School a unique choice for applicants [Show summary]

Dr. Linton Yee, Associate Dean for Admissions at Duke University School of Medicine discusses the program’s integrative learning approach that offers students hands-on training from day one. 

Interested in doing research during your time at medical school? Duke University School of Medicine might be the program for you. [Show notes]

How would you like to take the entire didactic portion of medical school in the first year of medical school and spend your third year doing research or pursuing another degree? That's what students at Duke School of Medicine can do. We're going to hear from Duke School of Medicine's Associate Dean of Admissions right now.

Welcome to the 432nd episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for tuning in.

Are you ready to apply to your dream medical schools? Are you competitive at your target programs? Accepted's Med School Admissions Calculator 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.

Our guest today is Dr. Linton Yee, Associate Dean for Admissions at Duke University School of Medicine. Dr. Yee earned his bachelor's and MD at the University of Hawaii. He then did his residency in Pediatrics at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and a fellowship in Pediatric Emergency Medicine at Children's Hospital in Los Angeles. From 1996 to 2007. He practiced and taught Pediatric Emergency Medicine in Hawaii and California, before taking a position at Duke University as an Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics’ Division of Emergency Medicine, and a pediatric emergency room physician. He's also Duke Medical's Associate Dean for Admissions, and it's in that capacity that I have invited him back to Admissions Straight Talk for a show devoted to Duke Medical.

Dr. Yee, can you give an overview of Duke Medical's highly distinctive curriculum? [2:11]

We've had this curriculum in place for a number of years, and the goal is to produce leaders in medicine and also to help the applicant and the student, eventually, understand the link between clinical medicine and research, and how both of these things help to promote, advance, and improve medical practice. Our curriculum is changing right now, and we're putting in new elements in what we call ”patient first.” I think all the applicants and med students out there have to understand that the patient is the center of your universe and everything you do has to be done to improve their well-being. So we're shifting a lot of our thinking now, and actually using the immersion of the med students into the first year, from day one so you're seeing patients from day one. We're then integrating a lot of the biomedical concepts with that. So you'll have early clinical exposure, and you'll have a lot of the foundations within that first year. That first year is still your basic science year, but with a lot of clinical elements integrated in.

Get to know NYU Stern's top-notch MBA programs, and find out what Stern adcom looks for in applicants [Show summary]

Lisa Rios, NYU Stern’s newly appointed Assistant Dean of MBA Admissions, describes NYU’s innovative MBA program and the COVID adaptations that have been made to elements of the program and its application process. 

Interview with Lisa Rios, Assistant Dean of MBA Admissions at NYU Stern [Show notes]

Are you interested in NYU Stern? Well, today we're interviewing the brand new assistant dean of MBA admissions at NYU Stern so tune in.

Welcome to the 431st episode of Admissions Straight Talk, Accepted's podcast. Thanks for joining us. 

Are you ready to apply to your dream business school? Are you competitive at your target programs? Accepted MBA admissions calculator can give you a quick reality check, just go to accepted.com/mbaquiz, 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. Again, use the calculator at accepted.com/mbaquiz, and you can obtain your free assessment right there. 

It gives me great pleasure to have on Admissions Straight Talk for the first time Lisa Rios, Assistant Dean of MBA Admissions at NYU Stern. Lisa has been a member of the admissions team since 2008 and leads admissions for the full-time MBA programs. She has evaluated nearly 50,000 MBA applications and seen nearly 5,000 new full-time MBA students start their MBA journey during her time at Stern.

According to Lisa, the best part of her role is that it does not feel like a job; she loves what she does. The biggest reason for this is the Sternies she works with every day. The second is the fast pace at which Stern innovates and challenges its people, including the admissions team, to ideate, try new things and continue to learn. Lisa also enjoys the travel that is part of her job, at least before COVID, and the chance to explore other cultures that comes along with it. Bombay, London, Istanbul, Tokyo, Toronto, and Beijing, are just a few of her recruiting stops, and the places that she doesn't get to visit in person, especially during the last year, she experiences through applicants’ vivid images and descriptions in their “Pick Six” visual personal expression admissions essays. Lisa, welcome to Admissions Straight Talk and congratulations on your recent promotion to Assistant Dean.

Stern has a pretty impressive menu of MBA options. I think that's part of its innovative nature, can you give an overview of the different options? [2:43]

Absolutely. Thank you for asking. So you're right, Stern does have a large portfolio of MBA program options available to prospective students. It runs the gamut from executive MBA, including a TRIUM program that partners with two schools on the other side of the globe to give a global experience to our students, as well as a part-time MBA program. And the areas that fall under my purview are the full-time MBA programs, which include the two year full-time MBA as well as two focused MBA programs, one in tech and one in fashion and luxury.

Can you give an overview of the full-time program focusing on the more distinctive elements?

Are you smart, accomplished, aware and encouraging? Dartmouth Tuck may be the MBA program for you. [Show summary]

Pat Harris and Amy Mitson, co-executive directors of the MBA Admissions and Financial Aid at Dartmouth Tuck, share all about the Tuck experience including its close-knit community, amazing alumni network, and unique location while offering guidance to those seeking to attend. 

What the Tuck adcom looks for in applicants, and how to show you've got it [Show notes]

Welcome to the 430th episode of Admissions Straight Talk, Accepted's podcast. Thanks for tuning in. 

One of the questions applicants sometimes ask is, “Are Accepted's services worth the money?” The answer is a resounding, “Yes!” at least in my opinion. If you're curious as to why that's so, or why I’m convinced it’s true, check out the MBA consultant ROI calculator and find out for yourself how much not teaming with an Accepted consultant could cost you. Use the calculator and you'll see three different scenarios that you can try out. 

It gives me great pleasure to have, on Admissions Straight Talk, Pat Harris and Amy Mitson co-executive directors of the MBA Admissions and Financial Aid at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Amy joined the Tuck admissions office in 2000. An attorney by education, Pat joined the Tuck MBA admissions office in 2004. Both have assumed increasing responsibilities over the years and became co-executive directors in September, 2020 -- in the midst of the pandemic. I believe I met both of them way back when Tuck hosted a conference for admissions consultants in 2005 and probably had them on our typing-only chats way back when. 

Now it's my pleasure to have you both on for the first time. Amy and Pat, Welcome to Admissions Straight Talk.

Can you give an overview of the full-time program focusing on its more distinctive elements? [2:36]

Amy: The Tuck program starts with an expanded orientation for students to establish a firm foundation so they can jump into a very rigorous academic experience during their time at Tuck. It was several years ago when we redesigned the orientation program to now be called Tuck Launch and there are several components of that: integrated programming in Tuck Launch, experiential learning, as well as very specific opportunities for reflection.

We believe this sets a stronger foundation as people jump into the core curriculum. The core curriculum at Tuck begins and weaves its way through the first year at Tuck with expanded fall term opportunities and new data analytics courses. We made some changes to the winter term to try to optimize student academics as well as recruiting, and we've gotten some very positive feedback on that. When students head into the spring term of the first-year, a distinct element of the Tuck experience is the first-year project. Many MBA programs will have a capstone project in their first year. The uniqueness of Tuck is that students have total choice of the team that they want to work with and the project that they want to work on. It could be something consulting, non-profit focused, entrepreneurial where you'd present to investo...

I am taking off for family time this week. As a result I decided to air an encore of our most popular med podcast so far in 2021, and it is: What Med School Applicants Must Know About Johns Hopkins, my interview with Paul White, Assistant Dean for Admissions at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. It actually took place last fall, but has been very popular this year.

It’s an excellent time for this podcast. Many of you are knee-deep in secondaries, including secondaries for Johns Hopkins. Others are starting to think ahead to next year’s cycle. In either case hearing from one of the most experienced med school admissions directors at one of the top medical schools in the world, can only benefit you if you are applying to medical school. 

For those of you thinking ahead to med school interviews or perhaps already having received an interview invitation, I’d like to invite you to Accepted’s next webinar, How to Nail Your Medical School Interviews, to be presented by  Cydney Foote, who has been helping med school applicants nail their interviews since 2001. We expect a packed house for the webinar so sign up today!  

Whether applying this cycle or next, I hope that you are enjoying a wonderful summer. Thanks for listening to What Med School Applicants Must Know About Johns Hopkins.

For the complete show notes, please check out the original blog post.

Related Links:

* Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine website* Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Secondary Application Essay Tips [2021 – 2022]* How to Nail Your Medical School Interviews* The 5-Part Framework for a Successful Medical School Application, an on-demand webinar* School-Specific Secondary Application Essay Tips* Medical School Admissions Consulting Services

Related Shows:

* How to Address COVID-19 and the Events of 2020 in Your Application* How to...

College admissions tips from a Harvard graduate [Show summary]

Julie Kim shares her journey from growing up as an immigrant daughter to obtaining a Master’s of Education from Harvard to now operating her own college consulting company. She shares her tips for getting into Harvard despite low test scores. 

How following a passion for education led Julie from HGSE to admissions consulting [Show notes]

Welcome to the 428th episode of Admissions Straight Talk, Accepted’s podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Before we dive into today's interview, I want to mention a free resource at Accepted that can benefit you if you are applying to graduate school. The challenge at the heart of admissions is showing that you both fit in at your target programs and stand out in the applicant pool. Accepted’s free download, Fitting In and Standing Out: The Paradox at the Heart of Admissions, will show you how to do both. Master this paradox and you are well on your way to acceptance. You can download the free guide here. 

It gives me great pleasure to have on Admissions Straight Talk for the first time, Julie Kim. The daughter of immigrants, Julie admittedly didn't excel in high school. However, using a passion project, she was able to secure acceptance first to USC as an undergrad, and then attended Harvard's Graduate School of Education where she earned her Master's in Education in 2015. She founded Julie Kim Consulting, an undergraduate admission consultancy in 2015 and has grown it ever since. Julie, welcome to Admissions Straight Talk.

One question that I had right off the bat was, your undergrad degree was in Business Administration and Marketing. Why the pivot to Education for the Master's? Or was that your plan all along? [1:25]

That was my plan all along. As you know, there's not a lot of undergraduate majors that students could take advantage of. At USC in particular, they didn't offer an education major but said they allowed a minor. I thought, well, I want to get into business one day and I feel like this is such an applicable skill set in all industries so that's where I started. Even though I was majoring in business, I continued to participate in education related internships and volunteer work and research.

How did you know that you wanted to do education all along? [2:22]

I always loved teaching. I remember when I was in third grade, I sat my little brother down and I was like, “I'm going to teach you math.” And he was like, “Okay”, because we're only two years apart. So I always loved teaching, and even with my parents, I would always be explaining to them what's going on in the education world and what is the difference between SAT and ACT. I think I was kind of born with this love for education.

You attended USC and majored in Business and Marketing, and then you chose to go to Harvard. Did you take some time off in between, or did you go straight? [3:37]

I took a year off to prepare for the graduate admissions process. So a year later.

How did you prepare for Harvard? [3:57]

Ace any standardized admissions test, with top-tier academic coaching and effective tools to manage anxiety [Show summary]

Bara Sapir has been providing test prep for over 20 years and is a pioneer in mindful test taking, implementing a holistic approach to the test prep process. She shares her best tips along with her comprehensive approach for success on any test.

Approaching test prep with mindfulness [Show notes]

Welcome to the 427th episode of Admissions Straight Talk, thanks for joining me. Before I introduce our guest for today, I'd like to invite you to take advantage of Accepted’s price rollback. Last year in the midst of the pandemic, Accepted experimented with a price rollback and it was so popular that we are doing it again. Today and tomorrow you can purchase Accepted's outstanding admissions advising and editing at 2017 prices. Just go to accepted.com/services, choose the service that's right for you and save. The rollback prices will only display in the shopping cart, not on the website page, but hurry this special ends at midnight July 21st Pacific time. Then it's back to contemporary times and 2021 pricing.

Our guest today, Bara Sapir, is an internationally recognized expert in high performance coaching and personal empowerment and is a pioneer in mindful test taking and transformative test preparation. She has a BFA from the University of Michigan, a MA in education from the Jewish Theological Seminary, and a MA from the University of Michigan in art history, gender and holocaust studies. Well-resourced and experienced, she has had a 20+ year career in the test prep field with expertise in eliminating test anxiety, managing stress, building confidence and improving each student's journey through the academic terrain. She founded City Test Prep, a hybrid test preparation company providing academic mastery, test taking strategy and techniques in holistic and mindful test taking. 

Given your background in the arts and history, how on earth did you get involved in test prep? [2:26]

It started when I was at University of Michigan. I was in the Fine Arts program and felt that I wanted to stay on to really take advantage of the university. I could have either gotten a double major or I could have stayed on to get a Master's degree and be in the PhD program and thought, "Let me apply to PhD programs," but to do that I needed to take a test prep course in order to take the GRE. And I did, I took the Princeton Review and felt like, "Oh, this is really interesting. This is really fun. I can do this too." So I started working for Princeton Review and I saw once I started teaching how the work that I did as an artist, which is so much about being in the zone and being present and really allowing yourself to be just so fully immersed in the now so that you can produce what it is that you're trying to express, was really relevant to students who were learning a lot of the material. So I started to bridge these worlds between the fine arts and being in the zone, and the students I was teaching in test prep.

How do you define mindfulness? What role does mindfulness play in effective test prep? [3:42]

Are you aiming for an MBA from CMU Tepper? Here's how to make that dream a reality. [Show summary]

Kelly Wilson, Executive Director of Masters Admissions at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business discusses Tepper’s MBA programs, which are focused on analytics, leadership and technology advancement.  

With full-time, part-time and hybrid options, Tepper offers an MBA program to fit any schedule [Show notes]

Welcome to the 425th episode of Admissions Straight Talk Accepted Podcast. Thanks for tuning in.Are you ready to apply to your dream business schools? Are you competitive at your target programs? Acceptance MBA admissions calculator can give you a quick reality check. Just go to accepted.com/mbaquiz, 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.

It gives me great pleasure to have on Admissions Straight Talk Kelly Wilson, who is the Executive Director of Masters Admissions at the Carnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business. Kelly earned her Bachelor's at Grove City College and three Master's degrees: an MBA from George Mason and a MS and MIS from the University of Pittsburgh Joseph Katz Graduate School of Business.

After working for several years in business, she began her career in admissions at Katz in 1999. In 2008, she became Assistant Dean and Director of MBA Admissions at Georgetown's McDonough School, where she served for four years and which is where I think I first had the pleasure of meeting Kelly. She then returned to Pittsburgh and became Executive Director of Masters Admissions at CMU Tepper, and has been working in that capacity for the last almost nine years. Kelly, welcome to Admissions Straight Talk.

How many master's programs are you overseeing and what are they? [1:40]

We have our MBA program in three different formats: the Full-Time two-year program, our Part-Time Online Hybrid program, and our Part-Time Flex MBA. In addition, we have the MS in Product Management and then MS in Business Analytics. We will be launching a couple of master’s programs in the near future. So keep an eye out for that information.

What is the difference between the three MBA programs? [2:15]

So the Part-Time Online Hybrid is our online program; there is an in-person component to it which is why it’s hybrid. The way that it works is the part-time students will come to campus about every six and a half, seven weeks between mini semesters where they'll do a weekend together on campus.

The Part-Time Flex was our traditional Pittsburgh-based, part-time program. The really cool thing now is that our part-time students in both programs will spend the first year together in that Part-Time Online Hybrid format, giving flexibility to both groups of students, and then the Part-Time Flex students from the Pittsburgh region can choose to take more traditional evening classes if they'd like, or they can continue on the Online Hybrid format.

Can you give an overview of the CMU Tepper full-time MBA programs, focusing on the more distinctive elements?

Want to learn more about Kaiser Permanente's highly competitive tuition-free and lecture-free medical school program? [Show summary]

Dr. Willies-Jacobo describes the foundational values that are woven into the culture at Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine which accepted its first class in the midst of the pandemic. She also shares the challenges and adaptations that have come as a result of establishing a new program during the tumultuous past year. 

KP Tyson: A unique medical school with a dedication to social equity and an emphasis on small group learning [Show notes]

Our guest today is Dr. Lindia Willies-Jacobo, Senior Associate Dean for Admissions and Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity at the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine, which welcomed its first class in the summer of 2020 and in the midst of the pandemic. While the Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine may be new, Dr. Willies-Jacobo is not at all new to the field of Med School Admissions. 

She earned her MD at UCSD and served as a professor of pediatrics from 1992-2019. For 22 of those years, she was also the Assistant Dean for Diversity and Community Partnerships and Director of the program in Medical Education, Health, and Equity.

Can you give us an overview of the Kaiser Medical School curriculum, focusing on the more distinctive elements? [1:55]

Absolutely, happy to do that. We just welcomed our inaugural class a year ago, last July, in the midst of a pandemic. We certainly did not anticipate that, but I think in terms of some unique features of the school, I think perhaps the most distinct one would be that we are a non-lecture based school. So we perhaps are, if not one of the only ones, the only school whereby all of our learning takes place in small groups of eight. Because we welcomed 50 students, there is one group of 10 students. So it is non-lecture-based, problem-based learning. It's all integrated. As prospective students may have read, we've decided not to go with the sort of typical departments as there are at many schools. But instead, we have three pillars, our Department of Biomedical Science, our Department of Clinical Science, and our Department of Health System Science. So all learning is integrated across all three pillars.

The other couple of distinct features about our school is that we were really built on kind of the foundational principles of equity, inclusion and diversity, which means that it is fully baked into the fabric of the school. We also are teaching anatomy in somewhat of a future facing forward thinking way. We are not using, the students will not be or have not been, dissecting cadavers, but instead we're leveraging technology so that anatomy is being taught by way of augmented and virtual reality. And then I'll just close by saying that our school has curricularized well-being. So we have a pretty significant and robust well-being curriculum. It's called REACH, which stands for Reflection, Education, Assessment, Coaching, and Health and Wellbeing. So every medical student is actually paired with a physician coach, who is helping them along their journey in terms of developing their professional identity. So those are a couple distinct areas. 

All about the University of Illinois College of Medicine's admissions process [Show summary]

During this episode, Dr. Leila Amiri who is the University of Illinois College of Medicine's Assistant Dean of Admissions and Recruitment, not only dissects the UI COM admissions process but also provides a wonderful and experienced perspective on the overall medical school application process.

Do your goals align with the mission of the University of Illinois College of Medicine? [Show notes]

Welcome to the 423rd episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for joining me today. Before we meet our guest I want to invite you to attend this next med school admissions webinar: How To Create Successful Secondary Applications. It's a free webinar which I will present on July 8th, 2021. Secondary applications are going to flood your calendar and consciousness in the weeks ahead and maybe even have already started doing so. You have to turn them around quickly and effectively, but how? We've got you covered. Register for How To Create Successful Secondary Applications for free.

And now a little information about our guest today. Dr. Leila Amiri joined the University of Illinois College of Medicine team in 2017. As Assistant Dean for Admissions and Recruitment she oversees admissions and recruitment for all three campuses of the College of Medicine. She is a passionate advocate for holistic review and admissions and provides strong support for students striving to achieve their academic and professional goals.

Dr. Amiri has spent her career in higher education, starting as a peer advisor in the biology department. Over this time she has worked with a variety of students at seven different institutions as an advisor, faculty member, administrator, and mentor.

In the medical education arena she has engaged in leadership at the national level serving as a liaison for the committee on admissions for the Association of American Medical Colleges, AKA the AAMC, and as an AAMC holistic review facilitator working with other medical schools admissions committees on how to include holistic review in their process. She is currently serving as the vice chair for the BA/MD Affiliate Group.

Dr. Amiri, welcome to Admissions Straight Talk.

Can you give us, to start, just a basic overview of the UI School of Medicine program focusing on its more distinctive elements? [2:15]

Absolutely, we're one of the larger medical schools in the country. We admit 300 students every year to three different campuses. We're very mission driven in that the mission is to advance health for everyone with outstanding education, outreach, healthcare, research, and really with a focus of social justice and social responsibility at the core of what we do.

What I really appreciate about our program is that we are so diverse, not only in the student body and the faculty, but also the programming that we offer. So we're able to offer, for example, urban focused healthcare programs all the way up to rural medicine focused programs.

What every applicant to Georgetown McDonough should know [Show summary]

Shelly Heinrich, Associate Dean of MBA Admissions at Georgetown McDonough, explores what’s new with the school’s full-time and flex MBA programs and how applicants can stand out to the admissions committee.

Make your application to Georgetown McDonough shine! [Show notes]

Interested in an MBA focused on international business with rigorous academics and a supportive collaborative culture? Pull up a chair. Today's guest is the Dean of Admissions at Georgetown McDonough's MBA program, and it fits your bill perfectly.

Shelly Heinrich is Associate Dean of MBA Admissions and Director of Marketing at Georgetown's McDonough School of Business. Shelly has been leading Georgetown's admissions efforts since 2014 and became Associate Dean in 2017. She earned her BBA from Texas Christian University, her master's in educational administration from UT Austin, and her executive MBA from Georgetown McDonough.

Can you give us an overview of Georgetown's full-time and flex MBA programs for those listeners who aren't that familiar with these programs, and focus on their more distinctive elements? [2:13]

The great thing about our full-time and flex program is that they are both 54-credit degrees, and they both follow the same exact curriculum. You have the same access to the career center, which is unique sometimes for a part-time MBA, the same access to professors and the global consulting experience. The real difference is the timing and the format. The full-time MBA is a standard full-time MBA. It's 20 months with an internship the summer between year one and year two. Our flex MBA program, you can complete in two and a half to five years, really crafting your own schedule. If you want to take two to three classes at a time, you can speed it up. If you want to stretch it out, taking maybe one or two classes at a time, you can do that as well. With the flex MBA, you also have different course delivery options in order to make it more flexible. You can choose between electives that are on Saturday, that are in the evening, that are hybrid and also do more of our intensive learning experiences, the intense one-week electives to get an entire credit knocked out. You do have a little bit more flexibility. But in general, both are standard MBAs and when you graduate, your degree says “MBA.”

What's new at McDonough, other than the pandemic and the new reality that we're all dealing with? [3:35]

What I love so much about Georgetown and our Dean Almeida is his energy. Even while we were dealing with the pandemic, we were still continuing to forge ahead and launch the new initiatives that we had wanted to launch and then even launch some new ones. We launched in December our MBA advanced access program, which is our deferral program. We launched an MBA mentorship program, which is a mentorship program between alumni and MBA students to get professional mentorship and guidance. Our students launched a McDonough Talks podcast to give you the real story of what it's like to be a student.

Then,