Our First Victory

We are excited to say that through your help in advocating on behalf of all of us and participating in this collective action, Penn State College of Medicine has formally notified all withdrawn applicants that our secondary application fees will be returned to us and has met the first demand on our list! Further, they have cleared the misconception that “thousands” of applicants were withdrawn and stated that it was 170 applicants, and this will be updated in the petition. However, whether the number be 1000 or 100, withdrawing ANY applicants from the pool unfairly undermines the integrity of a fair application process, and we need to continue our effort to have all our demands met. Unfortunately, Penn State is still standing by their decision to withdraw us on the basis that, “at the point of application to our MD program, the College of Medicine does not recognize or accept applications for combined degree tracks in graduate school programs, other than an MD/PhD program.” They regard the addition of the “Combined Medical Degree/Graduate” as a fault of their “AMCAS-available programming,” and are saying that nothing can be done about it. While we understand that, this option WAS provided to us as if the College does accept these applications, and it is not a fault of ours that we applied through an unrecognized means - we were following all directions to a T. The College certainly should face repercussions for disadvantaging applicants unfairly and for mismanagement of state funding on the part of their Admissions office, and we encourage you to continue reaching out to the PA Senate and PA House Allocations Committees with your stories and get their support in demanding a fair and transparent application process to Penn State College of Medicine’s MD program in the future. Additionally, Penn State has yet to explain how applicants could call the Admissions office and confirm the status of their applications by providing their AMCAS ID over the phone or submit an update to be added to their application via email if the office administrators “were not aware” of the 170 applications they later withdrew. Surely, the Admissions office had access to these applications throughout the application year, otherwise they would not be able to do any of this for us when we requested. They’re still hiding something. We need to continue this fight to demand a fair and transparent application process for future years. We must request for Penn State to deliver a statement regarding the specific changes that will be made for future years as a result of this year’s failure, beginning in the 2018-2019 application cycle. At the end of this update is an email you can use to respond to the Admissions office’s latest email to request a list of specific changes the office will make to ensure its application process is fair in the future. When we can be sure that Penn State’s College of Medicine is serious about righting their wrongs, we can declare victory for this petition. Until then, we need all of your support in responding to Penn State with your demand for transparency. We are at the end of this fight, and we need your help in this last battle! In solidarity, Medical School Applicants 2017-2018 ----- Dear Penn State College of Medicine Admissions, I appreciate your thorough communication on this matter and that you will be returning my secondary application fee. As you move forward in implementing procedures to prevent this type of error from happening again, I would like to share with you some of the demands for transparency that I signed on to on the following petition and am requesting that you send out one final communication to all withdrawn applicants detailing specific interventions that will be in place for future years’ application processes for your MD program, beginning in the 2018-2019 application cycle. (https://www.change.org/p/marc-lubbers-demand-transparency-in-md-admissions-at-penn-state-hershey-college-of-medicine) Our Demands: 1) At the beginning of application review each year, ensure that all applications that were submitted are actually in the pool for consideration. 2) Send email updates to all applicants about the status of their particular applications every two months during future application seasons, beginning in September of every year until the end of the cycle in March of the following year, starting in the 2018-2019 application season and continuing for years onward. 3) Update the applicant portal with a timestamp every time an application is opened by the admissions office, admissions committee, or IT department with a brief description of the purpose for which the portal was opened, whether it be for system maintenance, for the admissions committee’s review, for troubleshooting, upon request by the applicant over the phone, or for another reason, and allow applicants real-time access to these updates via the portal. 4) When applicants call to inquire about their application status, update the applicant portal’s communications tab with the time and date of the phone call that was made. The demands we make of the admissions office are very reasonable after PSUCOM Admissions’ horrendous mistake in this year’s process, and are only made with the intention to improve the process for years to come and to have some justice come out of this whole scandal. We hope that you will make a formal statement soon detailing your planned improvements to ensure the application process to your MD program is fair and transparent for years to come. Thank you, [Your Name]