3.92 cGPA, 3.94 sGPA, 32 MCAT

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willjle

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Hello everyone,

I'm taking one year off and planning on applying in the 2016 cycle. My goal is to get into an MD school (not really considering DO). Moreover, I want to make my application cycle relatively safe and avoid having to reapply.

CA resident (one of the top UCs), ORM
Stats: 3.92 cGPA, 3.94 sGPA, 32 MCAT (12/9/11)

EC:
-Research influenza (400+ hrs): 1 poster
-Lab assistant (100hrs)
-Shadowing cardiologist/anesthesiologist/geriatrician (40hrs)
-Tutored college athletes (350hrs)
-Tutored disadvantaged/minorities undergrads (250hrs)
-Homeless medical clinic volunteer (200hrs)
-Dental clinic volunteer (40hrs): back when i was pre-dent lol
-Hospital escorter/greeter (40hrs)
-Special olympics coach (100hrs)
-Medical volunteer at Honduras medical trip (20hrs)
-Low income clinic volunteer (200hrs)

I'm planning on applying to roughly ~40 MD schools. I was able to browse through a friend's MSAR to get a sense of the schools. As of now, my list can definitely be cut down. Any suggestions/feedback on my match/reach list is greatly appreciated. Thanks! :)

Albany
Albert Einstein
Rosy Franklin
Creighton
Drexel
EVMS
Florida Atlantic University Charles E. Schmidt
Quinnipiac
George Washington
Georgetown
Hofstra
Indiana University
SUNY Buffalo
USC
Loma Linda
Loyola-Stritch
Medical College of Wisconsin
Leonard Miller (Miami)
Vermont College
VCU
Virginia Tech
Wake Forest
St. Louis
UArizona, Tucson
UArizona, Phoenix
Florida International University Herbert
USF Health Morsani
University of Central Florida
Rush
Iowa
Tulane
UMaryland
Tufts
Oakland (William Beaumont)
NYMC
SUNY Downstate
SUNY Upstate
Stony Brook
Penn State, Hershey
Thomas Jefferson
Temple
UTSA (San Antonio)
UCI
UCD
UCLA

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If you want to cut down on the number of schools eliminate the OOS public schools that give a strong preference to their own state residents such as:
All the SUNY's
UTSA
Maryland
The 4 Florida schools- Central Florida, Florida International, Florida Atlantic, USF
Indiana
Iowa
Otherwise your list is good and you should receive several interviews.
 
Applying to 43 schools is not particularly smart. It's just not an effective use of time and energy. More so than that, you run a pretty strong risk of burning out from writing so many secondaries and it affecting your performance on all of them.

Albany
Creighton
EVMS
Quinnipiac
Hofstra
USC
Loyola-Stritch
Medical College of Wisconsin
Leonard Miller (Miami)
Vermont College
VCU
Wake Forest
St. Louis
UArizona, Tucson
UArizona, Phoenix
Rush
Tulane
Oakland (William Beaumont)
Penn State, Hershey
Thomas Jefferson
UCI
UCD
UCLA

If your paranoid about not getting in, apply to 20-25(maybe a tad more at most). The key is to pick the right 25. I cut out what schools which right off the bat I can tell you aren't the right ones. Schools like Indiana, Maryland, FIU, FAU, Central Fl, UT San Antonio, SUNY Downstate and SUNY Upstate have significant enough IS bias that I wouldn't really bother unless you have a really strong reason to want to go for one or two of them.

Now this leaves 36 schools. All can potentially be feasible but you want your biggest bang for your buck. So having said that, schools like Iowa, USF might be feasible but take a significant level OOS. A 3.9/32 might perhaps be enough to generate OOS consideration, but there are much wiser bets. Next comes some low yield options like Tufts, Va Tech, Georgetown, George Washington and Drexel, Temple, Rosalind Franklin, Tufts and Drexel get tons of apps(and Drexel has some level of IS bias regardless of what they say even if it is not major). I cut Tufts also because their tuition is insane; unless you really want to go there you can do better. GW and Georgetown get even more apps; I'd especially recommend ditching those. Va Tech has such a small class size that it's just not a high yield option. Temple gets lots of apps and takes 70% of their class IS; not particularly high yield either. Rosalind Franklin is another school with tons of apps and they take a number of people from their SMP class as well. You can be competitive but it just gets so many apps while also taking 30% of their class IS that there are just better options for someone like you who already has more than enough schools they can have a shot at. I also cut out NYMC: again another school you could be competitive for but they get so many apps and specifically so many apps from CA residents.

So now we are down to 26 schools. Read Loma Linda's mission and make sure you fit it; if your life isn't dedicated to serving Christ, remove it. That's 25 now. Stony Brook has a decent track record of taking CA students but there median stats are pretty high(MCAT median I believe is around a 33-34). OOS it might be feasible but tough. That's another decent option to remove. That makes 24. If you want one more even while its fine to have a couple reaches, Einstein while perhaps feasible for you, has a median MCAT a good 3 points or so higher than yours. If your goal again is to simply get in next cycle, that's another one you can remove safely without really affecting your chances. Tulane is another school that gets bombarded with apps and looks for rather specific unique things in their applicants like Peacecorps, TFA etc. While you can be competitive, it's another decent option to consider removing.

So there you have it. You've gone from 43 to 23 schools now and haven't really affected your chances of getting an offer in the process. In fact, you might have actually helped them as now you have far more time and energy to focus on fewer secondaries. If you want to add a few more than 23 schools and say add NYMC or Rosalind or Tulane or something that's fine. The point is 43 is just way too many.

It's not necessarily crucial to get caught up in some of these schools specifically to remove. You could probably make an argument that Rush is a better school to remove than say NYMC. That's fine but not really relevant. The key is to just get you thinking the right way. Identify schools with mission statements and in regions that interest you. Identify schools that don't take many OOS. Identify schools with median stats near yours. Identify schools that don't get bombarded with tons of apps or have specific quirks. That's how you want to try and think.
 
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A more realistic list would be:


Albany
Albert Einstein
Rosy Franklin
Creighton
Drexel
EVMS
Quinnipiac
George Washington
Georgetown
Hofstra
USC
Loma Linda
Loyola-Stritch
Medical College of Wisconsin
Leonard Miller (Miami)
Vermont College
VCU
Wake Forest
St. Louis
Rush
Tulane
Tufts
Oakland (William Beaumont)
NYMC
Thomas Jefferson
Temple
UCI
UCD
Any DO school (beggars can't be choosy)
Western MI
Rochester
Emory
 
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