Will you get into medical school? Site may know

Three past and present Penn students are trying to make applying to graduate school a less daunting prospect.

Along with his brother Jared Feiger and friend David Back — both Penn graduates — College junior Chase Feiger co-founded MedSchoolCountdown.com, a web-based company that provides user-generated data to potential medical school applicants.

“We wanted to help current college students figure out what their admissions chances were by creating a site that was informative in ways that I think existing sites are not,” Jared said.

He added that the site also aims to “create an online community of students with similar interests” and provide an environment in which they can communicate with one another about the application process.

Launched in early September, the site archives profiles submitted by previous medical school applicants nationwide. These profiles include students’ GPAs, MCAT scores, extracurricular activities, work experiences and undergraduate institutions.

In this regard, the site allows users to browse past applicant data and compare it with their own to gain a more accurate idea of the likelihood of admission to an institution.

The site also illustrates data submitted by previous applicants in graphs. Each data point on an institution’s graph represents an applicant, with GPA occupying the vertical axis and MCAT scores on the horizontal axis. Data points are color-coded according to whether the applicant was accepted, waitlisted, denied, waitlisted then accepted or denied or still awaiting results.

The site also includes a “My Chances” feature which calculates the exact percentile of students’ GPAs or standardized test scores in relation to those of admitted applicants. It then applies an algorithm that provides a “rough estimate of which schools the applicant should look at as a reach, which ones are in his target range and which are safeties,” according to Chase.

“There are sites that tell you ‘your scores are weak’ or ‘you have a strong chance,’ but what does that mean?” Jared said. “So we thought we’d give people their actual percentile.”

Thus far, the site boasts 187 users and anticipates further growth as its user base expands.

Acknowledging that MedSchoolCountdown.com “might have its uses as a possible tool,” Career Services Senior Associate Director Peter Stokes stressed the importance of understanding its “limitations.”

“Penn students and alumni should work with their pre-health advisors as they put together their applications,” he said, adding that Career Services also offers statistics on how Penn students specifically have fared in the medical school application process.

Two web sites offering similar services, Business School Countdown (BSchoolCountdown.com) and Law School Countdown (LawSchoolCountdown.com), were also recently launched. While both remain incomplete at present, they are currently accessible and will be finished within the next few months.

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