3.72 cGPA, 3.56 sGPA, 39 MCAT: 3 Denies, 1 Interview.

[dagabe]

-College GPA is 3.72 and my science GPA is a 3.56.
-39 MCAT: 14 PS, 10 VR, 15 BS.
-Biochemistry Major
-Clinical Volunteer: 80 Hours of Hospice Volunteering (5 hours/wk for 1 semester)
-Physician Shadowing: 90 Hours (Otolaryngologist, E.R. Doc, Orthopedic Surgeon, and Urologist) over 2 years
-Research: 400+ hours with a publication (5th author) and a poster presentation (3rd author) from over 2 years of research, Undergraduate Research Award Recipient
-Non-clinical volunteer: 2 year LDS mission in Tonga (South Pacific island group) and fluent Tongan speaker.
-Employment: Organic Chemistry Teaching Assistant (1 semester, 18 hours/wk)
-White, male

Most of my secondaries were in by late August and early September, I'm now scrambling to submit more (currently at 16). I've been denied by three schools and have one interview. Most of my peers at my school with stats similar to me are sitting on 5+ interviews. My thought is that I have a relatively low GPA, low service hours, and I was not early enough on applying. I'm trying to decide if just need to lower my sights and start submitting secondaries to more low tier schools or if I'm having typical pre-med student anxiety. (Note: Denies were from Pritzker, Mayo, and Georgetown)

Any thoughts or suggestions?

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[quechua]

Your app looks pretty balanced. Good GPAs, excellent MCAT, clinical exposure, research, publications, lengthy non-clinical volunteerism, and teaching experience.

You're waiting from 12 schools and that seems pretty hopeful. I'd say - what's worse: submitting more apps to increase your chances of medical school for next year or not submitting apps and needing to reapply next year?

If you have the money and the time I would submit additional applications. Additionally... There are more than 140 allopathic med schools in the US. You picked 16. I'm sure there are many other schools in the top third of all 140 schools that might interest you as well

 

[dagabe]

Thanks for your response. It's good to have an outsider's perspective. Do you think it's too late to add schools to my primary? If now isn't too late, when would you consider the cutoff?

 

[Goro]

I'm suurprised Georgetown shot you down. Your problem might not be the numbers, which I think are great, but your ECs. I appreciate the hospice volunteering, but that's it for patient contact experience? This might not be enough hours and I suggest that if you get shut out this year, that you get some more patient contact experience.

Also, your non-clinical ECs are lacking. Doing missionary work for the LDS or any other religion isn't treated as a real EC in my eyes. So, if you were actually helping people in Tonga, you'll have to play that up.

The timing could be an issue, you'll just have to take it on the chin and see how this app cycle goes.

Any red flags in your packet? Bad LOR?

-College GPA is 3.72 and my science GPA is a 3.56.
-39 MCAT: 14 PS, 10 VR, 15 BS.
-Biochemistry Major
-Clinical Volunteer: 80 Hours of Hospice Volunteering (5 hours/wk for 1 semester)
-Physician Shadowing: 90 Hours (Otolaryngologist, E.R. Doc, Orthopedic Surgeon, and Urologist) over 2 years
-Research: 400+ hours with a publication (5th author) and a poster presentation (3rd author) from over 2 years of research, Undergraduate Research Award Recipient
-Non-clinical volunteer: 2 year LDS mission in Tonga (South Pacific island group) and fluent Tongan speaker.
-Employment: Organic Chemistry Teaching Assistant (1 semester, 18 hours/wk)
-White, male

Most of my secondaries were in by late August and early September, I'm now scrambling to submit more (currently at 16). I've been denied by three schools and have one interview. Most of my peers at my school with stats similar to me are sitting on 5+ interviews. My thought is that I have a relatively low GPA, low service hours, and I was not early enough on applying. I'm trying to decide if just need to lower my sights and start submitting secondaries to more low tier schools or if I'm having typical pre-med student anxiety. (Note: Denies were from Pritzker, Mayo, and Georgetown)

Any thoughts or suggestions?

 

[dagabe]

I'm suurprised Georgetown shot you down. Your problem might not be the numbers, which I think are great, but your ECs. I appreciate the hospice volunteering, but that's it for patient contact experience? This might not be enough hours and I suggest that if you get shut out this year, that you get some more patient contact experience.

Also, your non-clinical ECs are lacking. Doing missionary work for the LDS or any other religion isn't treated as a real EC in my eyes. So, if you were actually helping people in Tonga, you'll have to play that up.

The timing could be an issue, you'll just have to take it on the chin and see how this app cycle goes.

Any red flags in your packet? Bad LOR?

I can see your point on my ECs. I agree with the stance on the missionary work and I definitely focused on the service aspect of what I did as opposed to any proselytizing work. Luckily where I went, the focus of my work was on community service but I wonder if adcoms would overlook that. I do worry that I talked too much about it and seemed overly religions or close-minded somehow.

As for the packet, I can't imagine having a bad LOR as I knew most of my writers very well. There was one writer who finished the LOR in only a few days which worried me so I guess it would be a possibility. Is there any real way of knowing after the fact?

I'm continuing to do hospice and will try to get more hours in if things don't go my way this year. Thank you very much for your feedback!

 

[user3]

I have seen Goro mention the patient contact thing multiple times, but reading posts by other adcoms on here such as Catalystik and LizzyM, shadowing with non-clinical volunteering seems to be satisfactory...

 

[gyngyn]

I think Goro's got it right. You would be golden except that missionary work doesn't count. You will be ok if you emphasize what you learned in Tonga and apply to enough schools. Let us know how you do so we can help others in your situation.

 

[amad01]

I think Goro's got it right. You would be golden except that missionary work doesn't count. You will be ok if you emphasize what you learned in Tonga and apply to enough schools. Let us know how you do so we can help others in your situation.

Sad to think missionary work "doesn't count." I served a mission in a very poor part of the world and spent at least 1 day a week doing nothing but service... We asked everyone we talked to if there was anything we could do to help them out... building houses, cleaning yards, fixing up schools, painting, digging ditches/trenches, planting trees/bushes. I spent a month digging a giant hole probably 12 feet deep, 8 feet wide, for a "septic tank" for a family building their house. There was a volcano nearby and we spent over a month doing nothing but cleaning up streets and yards (think Katrina-like). A mission is not only volunteer, but completely self-funded service where one spends every day with nothing but the physical, spiritual, and emotional well being of others in mind. A lot of time is spent proselyting, but for one to simply say it "doesn't count" while spooning soup for the homeless does.....? Something is wrong with that. I learned on my mission how to let go of my own selfish desires and needs and completely think about others. Before my mission I was a business major on athletic scholarship... and I came home wanting to become a physician because I learned to love people and want to help them in the utmost way possible. To simply say it doesn't count is silly.


I think the best thing to do is to use what you learned on your mission and apply it to MORE service at home... use your language skills to volunteer in a Tongan community program or interpret at a free clinic or whatever