MD 4.0 cGPA, 36 MCAT, Weak Volunteering/Clinical - School List Help!

[Lancer]

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[FindMeOnTheLinks]

Your list seems to be a good start but I would remove Georgetown (low yield) and Loyola (service oriented). You should consider Wake Forest, Miami Miller, Temple, Pitt, and Case Western among others. Your stats and research are great but your volunteering is bare bones which hurts. It is possible to skate by without that but it is going to be hard for you to answer "why medicine" in interviews with so little clinical experience. I was in a very similar boat to you and though it worked out ok for me, part of me wishes I would have taken a year off to rectify a lack of clinical experience/volunteering. In my opinion if you do that, you could gain acceptance to any of the top 20's. If you choose to apply now it might be a bit more stressful. But if you do decide to apply, you should look into more schools. I'm sure others will chime in here as well.

 

[Lancer]

Your list seems to be a good start but I would remove Georgetown (low yield) and Loyola (service oriented). You should consider Wake Forest, Miami Miller, Temple, Pitt, and Case Western among others. Your stats and research are great but your volunteering is bare bones which hurts. It is possible to skate by without that but it is going to be hard for you to answer "why medicine" in interviews with so little clinical experience. I was in a very similar boat to you and though it worked out ok for me, part of me wishes I would have taken a year off to rectify a lack of clinical experience/volunteering. In my opinion if you do that, you could gain acceptance to any of the top 20's. If you choose to apply now it might be a bit more stressful. But if you do decide to apply, you should look into more schools. I'm sure others will chime in here as well.

Thanks for the feedback! I've volunteered around 150 hours in a hospital setting during my summers in high school. Do you think that adding that to my application would make my situation a bit better? Although I realize high school experience is generally not added to the application, I think the 50 hours volunteering in the hospital is a bit misleading since I did a lot more of it in high school

 

[FindMeOnTheLinks]

Thanks for the feedback! I've volunteered around 150 hours in a hospital setting during my summers in high school. Do you think that adding that to my application would make my situation a bit better? Although I realize high school experience is generally not added to the application, I think the 50 hours volunteering in the hospital is a bit misleading since I did a lot more of it in high school

Generally you should not include high school activities on your application unless you continued the activity in college ie you volunteered at the same hospital throughout high school and college. I think in your case adding the high school hours would look a bit desperate, but others may disagree. Have you worked any other jobs in which you serve others?

 

[desertdweller]

I would not include anything from high school. It will look like you are reaching for clinical experience. Some may disagree, but I would say it's not too late to get the experience you will need. Work on getting a scribe position in an ED. Interviews are still pretty far into the future. It would be nice to be able to talk about an experience that's not already on your primary. Some schools may even ask you what you have done since submitting your app.

 

[Lancer]

Generally you should not include high school activities on your application unless you continued the activity in college ie you volunteered at the same hospital throughout high school and college. I think in your case adding the high school hours would look a bit desperate, but others may disagree. Have you worked any other jobs in which you serve others?

No, unfortunately. I've spent most of my time outside of classes TAing and doing research. I'll have to think about whether I want to add my high school hours. I feel like my application wouldn't really be too truthful if I excluded them since they were a big reason I didn't do as much volunteering in college (I didn't get a chance to do research in high school so I wanted to experience that)

I would not include anything from high school. It will look like you are reaching for clinical experience. Some may disagree, but I would say it's not too late to get the experience you will need. Work on getting a scribe position in an ED. Interviews are still pretty far into the future. It would be nice to be able to talk about an experience that's not already on your primary. Some schools may even ask you what you have done since submitting your app.

Unfortunately my summer is booked for doing research. I might be able to do some more volunteering during the summer and/or during the fall semester, or perhaps even getting a scribe position for fall semester.

 

[Goro]

You really need to get more volunteering in. So far, you done what's convenient, not necessary.
One that's out of the way, I would recommend:


Albert Einstein
Boston University
George Washington
Tufts
Hofstra
Rosalind Franklin
Loyola
University of Rochester
NYU
Icahn
Pitt
Duke
Northwestern
Loyola
Tulane
U Miami
Netter
Your state school(s)
Emory
Case
Mayo
U VM
U AZ
USC
U CO
OH State
U WI (maybe)
SUNY SB
SUNY Downstate

 

[DaMedDude]

I literally had pretty much the exact same application as you when I applied last year. My experience, and many of my friends with good stats, was landing interviews at top schools with high stats and pre-interview rejections from those mid-tier schools. I think your list is good but I would add some other good schools like Duke, Northwesten, OSU, mount Sinai, etc. also since you said east coast you should add wake Forrest because that's a great school with lower stats. My advice would be apply to a lot of schools that match your stats.....schools like Jeff receive so many apps and honestly I think they know that people with metrics like yours are applying as a backup and they want to give interviews to people they actually think will attend their school. Good luck!