3.90 cGPA/3.78 sGPA/38 MCAT--School List help

[Oncogenes]

Hi SDN,

I'm the first in my family to ever go to college, and I will also be the first at trying my hand at getting into medical school. I know there are some really great minds on this forum so I would appreciate any help you guys could give me. Here goes!

GPA: 3.90/3.78
Major: Public Health Studies
MCAT: 38
Other: I'm an Asian Male (Hooray! ._.) from a top 10 university. I'm also a CA resident, though I go to school on the East Coast.

Medical experiences:
-Research: 4 years in a Biochemistry lab (~1500 hours), 3 years in a Psychiatric lab (~500 hours), with one publication pending from each of them. I also have my name in an article on an observational study regarding late-stage Hyperthermic treatments, mainly for translating it from Chinese into English. Finally, I did research at a military university in China for a couple of years in high school (~300 hours) with no publications, don't know if this is relevant.

-Clinical: 1 summer doing full volunteering/shadowing in a hospital in China (~500 hours), 1 summer as a Patient Registration Chair at a free clinic in Vietnam (basically they had undergrad volunteers working on triaging/registering patients, and I oversaw the entire process; ~300 hours), 1 summer doing volunteering/shadowing with an Army Med Corps unit in Germany.

-Shadowing: 100 hours in Radiation Oncology, Psychiatry, Trauma Surgery, General Surgery

Other things:
-4 years as a EMT-B with my school's Emergency Response Unit. We respond with 3-4 people to every scene, and I'm what's called a "crew chief", meaning that I call the shots while on-scene. (~1500 call hours)

-6 years volunteering at a disabled children's orphanage in rural China (~600 hours)

-2.5 years as a listener on a crisis intervention/suicide prevention site (~700 hours)

-4 years as a cadet in ROTC: Ranked #2/25 in graduating class, top 5% nationwide. I joined my freshman year to pay for college, and so far I've led simulated missions, taught class, held orientations, created and led workouts, and done a ton of mentoring. I've also been fortunate enough to have the chance to go to several summer training opportunities (Airborne School my Sophomore year, Germany my Junior Year). At the time of my interviews I will be commissioning as a 2nd Lieutenant into the Reserves. (countless hours)

My list of schools **Edited!**(I am open to all suggestions on updating this list):
-Stanford
-UCSF
-UCLA
-UCI
-UCD
-UC Riverside
-USC
-UCSD
-Loma Linda
-Johns Hopkins
-Harvard
-Columbia
-University of Colorado
-Drexel
-Thomas Jefferson
-Baylor
-Washington University in St. Louis
-Tufts
-Boston


Thank you all so much for taking time out of your days to read this wall of text, and I hope I didn't bore you. Again, I am the first in my family ever to get past high school so applying to medical school is a huge mystery to me. I'd greatly appreciate any criticism, suggestions, or comments that you could give me.

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[Komorebi2]

FYI: UW accepts less than 0.5% of their OOR applicants. ("In-region" is defined as Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho.)

 

[Oncogenes]

FYI: UW accepts less than 0.5% of their OOR applicants. ("In-region" is defined as Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho.)

Thanks, guess that's one less application to do

 

[gyngyn]

When you delete the UW, you have about 2-3 schools where you can really expect an interview (unless you are from the IE, which would make it 4).
Time to get the MSAR.

 

[Stagg737]

When you delete the UW, you have about 2-3 schools where you can really expect an interview (unless you are from the IE, which would make it 4).
Time to get the MSAR.

Why is that? I'd say he'd at least be somewhat competitive at pretty much any school that doesn't have a major regional/demographic bias. I doubt OP is going to be hurting for ii's, especially since he is a California resident with very solid stats. That being said, I agree about the MSAR part and would apply to at least 3-5 more mid-tier schools to be safe.

 

[gyngyn]

Why is that? I'd say he'd at least be somewhat competitive at pretty much any school that doesn't have a major regional/demographic bias. That being said, I'd add 3-5 mid-tier schools to the list just to be safe. I doubt OP is going to be hurting for ii's, especially since he is a California resident with very solid stats.

Because you can be "perfect" and not get interviews at half the schools on his list.
OP needs to apply once, well with those stats or he's in a dark place.
A better (longer) list is the best way to achieve this.

I had a dozen or so applicants that looked a lot like OP on the waitlist at the end of the last cycle with no acceptances. I have to assume it was because they short-listed themselves.

 

[Stagg737]

Because you can be "perfect" and not get interviews at half the schools on his list.

Fair enough, but isn't 2-3 still a pretty conservative guess there? I know Cali schools are competitive, but for a resident with stats like that I'd expect 2-3 interviews from the Cali schools alone.

 

[gyngyn]

Fair enough, but isn't 2-3 still a pretty conservative guess there? I know Cali schools are competitive, but for a resident with stats like that I'd expect 2-3 interviews from the Cali schools alone.

Expectations often exceed reality in CA.

 

[Oncogenes]

When you delete the UW, you have about 2-3 schools where you can really expect an interview (unless you are from the IE, which would make it 4).
Time to get the MSAR.

Thank you for your advice. Now that I've gotten the MSAR and updated my list, would you mind looking over it again? I would really appreciate it.

 

[gyngyn]

Thank you for your advice. Now that I've gotten the MSAR and updated my list, would you mind looking over it again? I would really appreciate it.

Now you are golden.
You may want to look at the Loma Linda student handbook before applying, though.
You don't need to apply to Drexel, Jefferson or Tufts.

 

[y123]

Looks really solid!

 

[beatsbearsbsg]

Is this real?

 

[Oncogenes]

Is this real?

Yep! Some of the numbers are projected of course, but everything else is legit!