3.93 GPA/517 MCAT, Should I apply for this upcoming cycle or take a second gap year?

[deleted1153200]

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[Nontrad_FL_LGBT]

Honestly I think you should care less about the lab unless you're trying for MD-PhD and focus on service and clinical hours. You're borderline in both of those, even counting potential hours you're planning for, and they're all small commitments that don't demonstrate much deep investment.

Find something you love in each category you can do weekly until matriculation and you're fine with 1 gap year if you can swing it.

 

[deleted1153200]

Honestly I think you should care less about the lab unless you're trying for MD-PhD and focus on service and clinical hours. You're borderline in both of those, even counting potential hours you're planning for, and they're all small commitments that don't demonstrate much deep investment.

Find something you love in each category you can do weekly until matriculation and you're fine with 1 gap year if you can swing it.

Hi, thank you very much for your reply. I am not trying for MD-PhD so focusing on clinical and service during my gap year makes a lot of sense.

If I am able to get a NIH IRTA for one year and still increase my clinical/service hours through some some weekly clinical and non-clinical volunteering on the side do you still think it would be better to do a more clinical full time position like medical scribe/assistant?

 

[Jimmy McGill]

List is pretty top heavy which might be risky with 200 hrs of clinical. U should remove Howard U bc they are a HBCU

 

[chilly_md]

Several of your activities come across as purely there to fill up spots. These include your two clinical experiences of 20 and 30 hours (which realistically is about a month of two of volunteering on Saturday) and your two 10 hour activities with tutoring and research club. This will limit the number of interviews you get. You will need to get those 200 hours at the Children's Hospital and ideally 150+ hours volunteering with the homeless by the time of application.

I suggest:

Brown
Pitt
Mayo
Case Western
Tufts
UVA
Rochester
Dartmouth
Einstein
Hofstra
Cincinnati
Ohio State
Temple
Jefferson
Stony Brook
Albany
Vermont
Wake Forest
Miami
USF
Western Michigan
UMass
Colorado
Hackensack
SLU
Iowa

 

[Nontrad_FL_LGBT]

Hi, thank you very much for your reply. I am not trying for MD-PhD so focusing on clinical and service during my gap year makes a lot of sense.

If I am able to get a NIH IRTA for one year and still increase my clinical/service hours through some some weekly clinical and non-clinical volunteering on the side do you still think it would be better to do a more clinical full time position like medical scribe/assistant?

I think in this case it's really more of a pick your own adventure. If you've got like 250 hours each of clinical and volunteering (with solid, long-term activities), you should be fine to do whichever type of activity you prefer to make some money over the gap year imo.

In your position I'd find a PRN clinical job with 12 hour shifts and do a shift a week, and find a volunteer commitment you enjoy and can show up once or twice a week for 3-5 hours.

It's a grind while you're working FT. 😭

 

[deleted1153200]

Several of your activities come across as purely there to fill up spots. These include your two clinical experiences of 20 and 30 hours (which realistically is about a month of two of volunteering on Saturday) and your two 10 hour activities with tutoring and research club. This will limit the number of interviews you get. You will need to get those 200 hours at the Children's Hospital and ideally 150+ hours volunteering with the homeless by the time of application.

Thank you very much for updating my list. Your list is much more in line with my stats and the number of EC hours I have. Your point about those four experiences looking like filler is really helpful. Now that I am thinking about it I should be able to continue the clinical experience that I did for 30 hours this semester so I should have more hours for that experience. For the other three since they are very short-term activities would you say listing them might not be worth it? I will try to get some extra shifts volunteering with the homeless and try to get to 150+ hours and I should be able to reach the 200 hrs at the Children's Hospital.

 

[deleted1153200]

I think in this case it's really more of a pick your own adventure. If you've got like 250 hours each of clinical and volunteering (with solid, long-term activities), you should be fine to do whichever type of activity you prefer to make some money over the gap year imo.

In your position I'd find a PRN clinical job with 12 hour shifts and do a shift a week, and find a volunteer commitment you enjoy and can show up once or twice a week for 3-5 hours.

It's a grind while you're working FT. 😭

Great, I will look into activities and choose the one I prefer. By the time I apply, I should have 250 clinical hours and I will try to get as many non-clinical volunteering hours as I can.

That's a really good point about working FT. I will look into some PRN clinical jobs and some volunteer commitments I really enjoy.

 

[chilly_md]

Thank you very much for updating my list. Your list is much more in line with my stats and the number of EC hours I have. Your point about those four experiences looking like filler is really helpful. Now that I am thinking about it I should be able to continue the clinical experience that I did for 30 hours this semester so I should have more hours for that experience. For the other three since they are very short-term activities would you say listing them might not be worth it? I will try to get some extra shifts volunteering with the homeless and try to get to 150+ hours and I should be able to reach the 200 hrs at the Children's Hospital.

Yes, leave off the 3 very short-term activities.