3.45 GPA, 521 MCAT

[cupcakewarrior]

1. cGPA and sGPA as calculated by AMCAS: cGPA is 3.45, sGPA is 3.35. Molecular Biology major.
2. MCAT score(s) and breakdown: 521 (130/131/129/131)
3. State of residence or country of citizenship (if non-US): NJ
4. Ethnicity and/or race: Asian female
5. Undergraduate institution or category: Ivy (known to adcoms for grade deflation)
6. Clinical experience (volunteer and non-volunteer): 200 hours hospital, clinical research with patient contact for 2 years (around 10 hours per week during the semester, full time summers)
7. Research experience and productivity: also did 1 year health policy research with a publication, 1 year bench research with a poster and thesis
8. Shadowing experience and specialties represented: 10 hours cardiology, 10 hours ICU
9. Non-clinical volunteering: around 100 hours for campus health organizations but not clinical
10. Other extracurricular activities (including athletics, military service, gap year activities, leadership, teaching, etc): a LOT of leadership, a lot of employment in various part time jobs, mentoring/tutoring for multiple subjects and student types, some journalism. Tbh pretty confident in this aspect.
11. Relevant honors or awards: not much, in an honors society. Letters of recommendation will be good in my opinion--professors in lecture and seminar classes for advanced bio

Very Preliminary School List:
DO: PCOM, Michigan State, Rowan, maybe Touro Manhattan
top choice MD: BU, Tufts, or any NJ state school
MD: UMD, UMich, Hofstra, Mt. Sinai, Stony Brook, Buffalo, Ohio State, Drexel, Penn State, Penn, Jefferson, Temple
Looking to add more MD and maybe tweak the list. I'm having a hard time using stats effectively because of my unbalanced GPA and MCAT.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Faha]

You could add Einstein, Rochester, Cincinnati, Georgetown, St. Louis, Vermont

 

[GrapesofRath]

Boston U Tufts Hofstra Stony Brook Ohio St are all fine. You can keep the regional Philly schools if you want.
I would swap Downstate for Buffalo. If you didnt go to Maryland for UG, Id scratch it.
NJ is a rather competitive state, would be in a better spot if you added about a half dozen or so well targeted schools.
I personally would go through MSAR and try to pick out another half dozen or so OOS friendly MD schools with an MCAT median around 34ish(ie Miami Tulane etc)

 

[md-2020]

Boston U Tufts Hofstra Stony Brook Ohio St are all fine. You can keep the regional Philly schools if you want.
I would swap Downstate for Buffalo. If you didnt go to Maryland for UG, Id scratch it.
NJ is a rather competitive state, would be in a better spot if you added about a half dozen or so well targeted schools.
I personally would go through MSAR and try to pick out another half dozen or so OOS friendly MD schools with an MCAT median around 34ish(ie Miami Tulane etc)

I think there are higher yield schools than BU and OHSU. BU because you're a bit of a longshot and OHSU b/c you're OOS. Maybe add some NY schools (NYMC, Albany, etc)?

Penn State and UMD will be unfriendly to OOS.

UMich and ISMMS are pretty high reaches.

Target traditionally "low tier" schools across the board b/c your GPAs definitely hurt irregardless of the MCAT (and my fellow Asian genes oblige me to mention ORM status as well).

 

[KnicksDoc]

I have a friend at an NJ state school with your exact stats, so def apply to three MD schools in NJ.

 

[Goro]

U MD and U Mich be will be donations. Take your mom out to dinner instead.

Stick with your state schools, any DO school, and the lower tier MD schools (the Philly Triplets, NYMC, U Miami, Albany, etc).

1. cGPA and sGPA as calculated by AMCAS: cGPA is 3.45, sGPA is 3.35. Molecular Biology major.
2. MCAT score(s) and breakdown: 521 (130/131/129/131)
3. State of residence or country of citizenship (if non-US): NJ
4. Ethnicity and/or race: Asian female
5. Undergraduate institution or category: Ivy (known to adcoms for grade deflation)
6. Clinical experience (volunteer and non-volunteer): 200 hours hospital, clinical research with patient contact for 2 years (around 10 hours per week during the semester, full time summers)
7. Research experience and productivity: also did 1 year health policy research with a publication, 1 year bench research with a poster and thesis
8. Shadowing experience and specialties represented: 10 hours cardiology, 10 hours ICU
9. Non-clinical volunteering: around 100 hours for campus health organizations but not clinical
10. Other extracurricular activities (including athletics, military service, gap year activities, leadership, teaching, etc): a LOT of leadership, a lot of employment in various part time jobs, mentoring/tutoring for multiple subjects and student types, some journalism. Tbh pretty confident in this aspect.
11. Relevant honors or awards: not much, in an honors society. Letters of recommendation will be good in my opinion--professors in lecture and seminar classes for advanced bio

Very Preliminary School List:
DO: PCOM, Michigan State, Rowan, maybe Touro Manhattan
top choice MD: BU, Tufts, or any NJ state school
MD: UMD, UMich, Hofstra, Mt. Sinai, Stony Brook, Buffalo, Ohio State, Drexel, Penn State, Penn, Jefferson, Temple
Looking to add more MD and maybe tweak the list. I'm having a hard time using stats effectively because of my unbalanced GPA and MCAT.

 

[GrapesofRath]

I think there are higher yield schools than BU and OHSU. BU because you're a bit of a longshot and OHSU b/c you're OOS. Maybe add some NY schools (NYMC, Albany, etc)?

Penn State and UMD will be unfriendly to OOS.

UMich and ISMMS are pretty high reaches.

Target traditionally "low tier" schools across the board b/c your GPAs definitely hurt irregardless of the MCAT (and my fellow Asian genes oblige me to mention ORM status as well).

Adding a bunch of schools where the MCAT is well above be 90th like Albany and NYMC isn't going to do really do much for the OP here especially the ones that get >10k apps.

 

[md-2020]

Adding a bunch of schools where the MCAT is well above be 90th like Albany and NYMC isn't going to do really do much for the OP here especially the ones that get >10k apps.

Yet neither will applying to schools that average 3.8/3.7/37 when OP is an ORM with a 3.4/3.3. It's a tough situation to be sure, but I usually err on the side of "low yield" rather than "not competitive enough."

 

[cupcakewarrior]

Thanks everyone! I'll add that I haven't graduated yet and still have 7 BCPM classes and 4 non-science to add to that GPA before graduation (on top of an existing 16 science) so that could change a bit. I'm planning to apply to ~25 total, and I'll cut out most of the reaches and look into the targets. Some of the reaches are on there because they take relatively higher numbers of applicants from my school than expected. Looking more into those NY schools mentioned as well.

 

[GrapesofRath]

but I usually err on the side of "low yield" rather than "not competitive enough."

This isn't really the way I would look at it. It's not about erring on one side or another. The whole goal in making a list is to find schools most likely to interview you. That does not mean here lower tier=most likely shot at getting a II

This doesn't really have to do with lower tiers being "low yield" because they get a lot of apps. Schools have done this long enough to have a good idea to know who is and isn't likely to attend if accepted. Schools like RFU/GW/NYMC etc know that unless a person has something specific to them(ie from the area, went to UG there, legacy etc) with this kind of MCAT way above the 90th they arent likely to attend(I hear this repeatedly from people I know who work at schools like this). Nobody has any interest in spending time interviewing people they dont think are likely to attend. Just like applying to Harvard with low stats is a donation, the same can be true applying to RFU/GW etc types with a 99th+ percentile MCAT when they know you are a low yield candidate for them. It's just people only tend to realize the former as a bad decision.

Situations like these are often the hardest ones to find the right schools for. Generally speaking though, the ones most likely to target/show interest with people in this stat range tend to be somewhere in tier/stats between a Penn and Drexel along with state schools. That's the best solution here really, not so much trying to nitpick which of two bad options here is better between say "GW vs JHU".