Respond with Your Demand for Transparency

Thank you to everybody who has responded to Penn State with your demand for transparency. We need to continue voicing our concerns about the integrity of the application process and I urge everybody on this petition to copy the email at the end of this update and send it to Penn State's Medical School Admissions Office if you have not sent it since last week's update. It is absolutely necessary for everybody to individually support the cause if we are to ensure a just process in the future, as there really is strength in numbers. Flood the following email addresses with your demand for transparency by copying the following email template and modifying it per your specific situation as an applicant this past cycle or a future applicant, etc. Once again, we thank you for your continued support in advocating on behalf of future medical school applicants across the country. Mlubbers@pennstatehealth.psu.edu Studentadmissions@pennstatehealth.psu.edu Dear Penn State College of Medicine Admissions, I appreciate your thorough follow-up communication on the matter of my withdrawn application for the MD program and that you will be returning my secondary application fee.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that I signed on to on the following petition and am requesting that you send out one final communication to all withdrawn applicants detailing specific interventions that will be in place for future years’ application processes for your MD program, beginning in the 2018-2019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]