- Year in school: Junior, Looking to apply this cycle and graduate in 2016. Exercise Science Major, I currently have the option of getting a minor in Global Business and Literacy (a blend of foreign language and business, in my case spanish, in which I am fluent)
- Country/state of residence: California residence, My wife is a resident of Idaho, hence my application to Washington
- Schools to which you are applying: Top choices would be UCLA, Baylor, UT Southwestern, or Stanford. I would plan on applying to all the MD California schools, all the Texas Schools, University of Utah, and University of Washington. (Would really love advice on this, what I should add, any to take off….)
- Cumulative GPA: 3.83
- Science GPA: 3.75
- MCAT Scores: 37 (13/11/13)
- Research – include any abstracts/posters/publications and how you were credited (eg. First author, senior author, etc): I am in a Lab that does research on the relationship between quality/status of marriage and life span, I currently have 49 hours as present, aim is to hit at least 100 hours (is that a good goal? Should I aim for more?) I have not been listed on any publications/posters/abstracts yet, I hope to be able to get listed as an author by this next fall.
- Volunteering (clinical) – include hours/sites:
- Volunteered at an ER Room for a year (2013-2014), I'm still trying to get my actual hours, but 100+, got a letter of recommendation from the supervisor.
- Am currently volunteering with a program that sends me to Nursing Homes and Hospices, not sure how many hours, I would guess between 20-30.
- Physician shadowing – include hours/specialties:
- Anesthesiologist: 21 hours
- Plastic Surgeon: 15 hours
- Orthopedic Surgeon: 20.5 hours
- Non-clinical volunteering:
- Race Manager for a Large charitable organization (10,000+ runners a year) for 3 races over 2 years, 100+ hours maybe 200, not terribly sure at the moment. We volunteer about 5 hours a month during most of the year, then the week of the race, we end up putting in about 40 hours.
- Red Cross Emergency Preparedness Teacher for Spanish Communities: We go out to different spanish communities and teach emergency prep courses, Started in 2014, and have about 30 hours. About 1 hour a week of service
- Participant in my Universities Service Club Activities have included:
- Mentoring new students at orientation
- English Tutoring for 1st language spanish speakers
- This semester I have started volunteering with a program that teaches basic anatomy to local elementary schools, I will have about 20 hours of service at the end of the semester, and plan to continue with it until I graduate, it's really fun.
- From 2010 to 2012, I served an LDS Mission in Argentina. Although the majority of the time was spent proselyting, we were encouraged to do service on a weekly basis. While in Argentina, I spent our available time establishing english tutoring programs for elementary children.
- Extracurricular activities:
- Club President of Universities' Wrestling Team, and Heavyweight wrestler for the team as well for the past two years. In 2014, I helped found the team, and in our 1st year of competition in the National Collegiate Wrestling Association (NCWA), we placed 2nd in our conference (out of 9 teams). I placed 2nd in conference as well, qualified for the national tournament, and received an award as an Academic All-American for the NCWA. Since the start of the club, from September to March, we average about 15 hours a week, not including time spent doing President duties in the offseason such as creating a schedule, website development, sponsorship work. As a very conservative estimate, 600 hours, and I honestly thinks its closer to 900 hours.
- Club Officer for the Universities Premed Club, created new website for the club, including the creation of an online payment systems for club dues and creation of an automated mailing list. Average commitment has been about 3 hours a week, total currently is 96 hours
- Active particpant in local clergy in my church (LDS church has layman clergy), responsibilites have included:
- Responsibility for the temporal and spiritual welfare of a quorum of 30-40 young single adults in our local unit
- Accountable for an outreach program for members in unit that have physical needs (stuggling with addiction, low income, marital issues).
- Teaching regular classes on how to perform Family History Work using electronic media and onine resources.
- Organizing groups to provide regular service to local charities as representatives of our local unit.
- Average involvement is 2 hours weekly, total about 72 hours in the last two years
- Currently involved in a Life Science Entrepreneur club, working with a team that hopes to officially found a business around a life science technology licensed by our university by the end of the semester. Average commitment is 5 hours a week, total time so far is 35 hours.
- Employment history:
- From 2012-2013, worked in several seasonal positions (entertainment worker for a baseball team, driver for a local Co-Op) until I finished my two year degree and then transferred to university. Also worked as a Help Desk Techincal Support Agent for the two year school for 8 months from August 2012-May 2013
- From May 2013 to March 2014: Worked as an Instructor Support Liaison for my Universities Online Studies Program, instructing teachers on online teaching techinques, including how to use teaching software like Adobe Connect. We also mediated any conflicts or issues between students and instructors.
- In March of 2014, my wife's mother (my mother-in-law) walked out on her family, leaving 4 children in the house with the father, with ages from 9-14. When this happened, I quit my job so that we would have more time to help with my wife's family (they live about 3 hours away, so we had to drive a lot) Ended up not working from March 2014 to January 2015, when I took the MCAT
- Since January, I have been working as a tutor for an MCAT prep course
- Immediate family members in medicine? (y/n) Father in law is an Oral Surgeon, Mother is a Registered Nurse, Father is a Firefighter, but I have no relation to anyone who has gone to medical school.
- Specialty of interest: I met with a an Oculoplastic surgeon and I think that would be the cats pajamas, but it seems like a ridiculously small niche, so we’ll see. I also loved Emergency Medicine, and I'm attracted towards specialties that have a lot of variety in general.
- Particular Questions I have:
- Are my stats competitive for top tier schools? I have been told by fellow classmates to apply to Uwashington (with my wife being from Idaho) and Stanford, or even Harvard/John Hopkins, and I'm not not sure how realistic my chances are. Or even how realistic it is to get into UCLA/Baylor/UT Southwestern
- Specifically, how much will my wife being from Idaho help me with getting into UWashington.
- I know I need to add more lower ranked schools, I was wondering what schools would be good for a California resident to apply to that aren't in California/Texas
- I've heard both that UCLA/ UC San Diego does not give in-state preference and that they pretty much only accept California Residents, which is it?
- Do I need more physician shadowing or any other EC that I can really improve on.
- Does volunteering at a hospice/nursing home count as clinical volunteering?
- What can I do to better emphasize my love/interest with spanish and latino culture? I am fluent in Spanish, grew up in the central valley of california, and spent two years in South America. I would love to be able to work on medical innovations based on increasing medical care to underserved areas in and out of the United States, and I hope to spend a large part of my career working in South America. Being a white male, I feel like that can come off as very artificial/fake, and I'm struggling to show my genuine interest in this area of medicine.
MD & DO 37 MCAT, 3.83 GPA, CA Resident. Where to apply?
- Thread starter keyle
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You are fine for any US MD school (including top tier ones). Don't bother applying to any DO schools. I'm not sure how UWash looks at spouses in their region of interest, but it might be worth it to call them and ask. Don't bother applying to any TX schools other than perhaps Baylor if you aren't a TX resident.
Awesome! Thanks for the advice! I was wondering why you say don't try any other Texas schools, I'm curious because my brother-in-law goes to Southwestern, and I think it could be cool to be close. Again, I really appreciate the conusel
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Unfortunately, Texas schools are notoriously out of state unfriendly.
Gotcha, Thanks!
Apply to Texas schools because the application cost is $140 anyways. Pretty much every OOS person at Texas schools that I met had some tie to Texas and you can mention that you have family at a Texas med school.
Awesome! Are there any you'd specifically recommend I add, from what I understand, top schools includes places like Yale, Harvard, JH, UCSF, but how you do decide which would be better to apply to than others?
That is a good point, with the new Med schools in Austin (and wherever Rio Grande is), it does seem like a nice opportunity to apply to a range of schools for cheap
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Concur. TX require state schools to accept 90% from instate. I think you can do better elsewhere.
I suggest omitting U WA as well. Your wife's family ties are going to be irrelevant to them. You're the one who has to be from ID, not her.
Otherwise, aim for the sky. here's a few to get you started:
UCSF
UCSD
UCD
UCI
USC
U AZ
U CO
Stanford
Harvard
Columbia
Pitt
Vanderbilt
Northwestern
JHU
NYU
Mt Sinai
Einstein
Duke
Emory
U Miami
Tulane
I suggest omitting U WA as well. Your wife's family ties are going to be irrelevant to them. You're the one who has to be from ID, not her.
Otherwise, aim for the sky. here's a few to get you started:
UCSF
UCSD
UCD
UCI
USC
U AZ
U CO
Stanford
Harvard
Columbia
Pitt
Vanderbilt
Northwestern
JHU
NYU
Mt Sinai
Einstein
Duke
Emory
U Miami
Tulane
Thanks! I will definitely be adding these on to my list to consider. Are there any difference in quality in the schools from NYU on the list and down? Being from California I just don't know much about these schools (well except for Duke I suppose)
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They're all good. Tulane would be lower tier, but if you like hot and muggy summers with great food, then it's worth considering. For someone with your stats, it's a safety, and one that I think won't blow you off with the "oh s/he won't here with those numbers" mindset.
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I would go more towards the mid tier than the top tiers with research missions like Stanford. 49 hours seems a little low: the people who are matriculating into the Stanford School of Medicine Class of 2020 spent more time than that in the lab this week. I would apply to 3 top tiers or so and focus on the higher mid tiers.
Schools to consider:
Your 3 favorite reach schools
Any CA state schools
Dartmouth
Mayo
Pitt
USC
Baylor
Boston
Emory
Case Western
Schools to consider:
Your 3 favorite reach schools
Any CA state schools
Dartmouth
Mayo
Pitt
USC
Baylor
Boston
Emory
Case Western
Thanks Doug, I'll definitely take this into consideration. I do have the opportunity to do more research in the spring/summer, do you think if I bumped it up a substantial number that it would make a difference in my application, or would it be weird doing so much right before?
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It's not about the number of hours, it's about the Ps: posters, presentations, and (most importantly) publications. If you get one of those- and you can explain what you did and why it's important- your research box has effectively been "checked".
