516 3.96 GPA Realistic, Balanced List Help

[MattyF]

Hey everyone. Thanks in advance for your help. I’m looking to apply this cycle and can’t figure out a good, balanced list of realistic schools.



Year in school: Junior

White/Caucasian

Country/state of residence: NJ


Major: Double Major Genetics and Economics, Minor in Spanish


Schools to which you (think) you are applying: 1. NJMS 2. RWJ 3. Cooper 4. Sinai 5. NYU 6. Pitt 7. Einstein 8. Miami 9. Jefferson 10. Boston 11. Vanderbilt 12. Baylor 13. Alpert 14. Temple 15. Emory 16. Rochester 17. Mayo 18. Duke 19. Wash U 20. UT Houston 21. Ohio State 22. Georgetown 23. Wake Forest


Cumulative GPA : 3.96


Science GPA: 3.928


MCAT Scores: 516/129/127/128/132


Research: Have worked for 3 years in a yeast genetics lab studying proliferation of cancer cells. Presented at a variety of school-organized conferences. No publication yet, although my PI believes we can get something published before I graduate.


In addition, I will doing my honors thesis in economics while I study parity and revenue in sports.


Volunteering (clinical) – EMT for 2 years, ride a 12 hour shift approximately once a week.


Physician shadowing: Emergency Medicine 12 hours. My lack of shadowing/clinical volunteering is definitely a weakness that I hope to address this summer. Soon I should be able to shadow a family friend that is a orthopedic surgeon and a pediatrician


Non-clinical volunteering – 50 + hours with reading buddies, a program designed to teach inner-city kids in (usually) monolingual spanish households how to read in English (1 year).


100+ hours with my fraternity, volunteering in a wide range of events, including Dance Marathon, an event that benefits the Embrace Kids Foundation.


A Few Hours with Buddy Ball. Involves hanging out with kids with a wide range of disabilities and serving as a friend for them while they play soccer.


Was the fundraising chair for a club I helped start called RU Drug Aware, but it never really amounted to much.


Extracurricular activities: Sports Editor of a weekly campus satire newspaper. Started a band where I play drums. Member of a social fraternity, served on the executive board as Vice President of Academic Excellence; Peer Mentor through School Program. Intramural Sports


Employment history: I was paid for a summer to do research and was technically a Rutgers University Employee.


I am currently an organic chemistry tutor for student athletes at Rutgers.


There’s a chance I work full time this summer at a contract research organization (they do sequencing, plasmid prep, primer design/ synthesis, etc.)


I also work part time for extra cash at a restaraunt.


Immediate family members in medicine? Yes. My brother is an alumni of NJMS and a general surgery resident at Sinai. My mom is a nurse.


Specialty of interest: Orthopedics, Sports Medicine, Psychiatry, Geriatrics


Interest in rural health (y/n): maybe

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[WedgeDawg]

Hi there,

First, a few notes on your application - you seem to have picked up your weaknesses fairly accurately. The low number of shadowing hours combined with lack of clinical exposure other than being an EMT (different adcoms here have differing views on EMTs and the strength of their clinical exposure, so I'll leave them to comment on that). I think that definitely doing some more shadowing soon would benefit you, and doing some in-hospital volunteering (doesn't have to be too much, just some) might help as well.

Now, as for your school list, let's take a look:

NJMS
RWJ
Cooper
Einstein
Miami
Emory
Rochester
Ohio State
Wake Forest

All of the above look good and in your range.

Sinai
NYU
Pitt
Vanderbilt
Duke
WashU

The above are reach schools for you, but are probably worth keeping on with the possible exception of WashU. Their median MCAT is a 38/521, which is significantly above your score of 516 (which is a 34 or 35 equivalent). If you are going to take one off, I would remove WashU here.

Jefferson
Brown/Alpert
Baylor
Temple
UT Houston
Boston
Georgetown

These schools are going to be low yield for you either due to geographic preference, volume of applications combined with your stats, or low interview %. I could see you possibly throwing apps to Jefferson, Temple, or BU, but UTH and Baylor highly favor Texas applicants, Georgetown gets an insane number of apps, and Brown only interviews 3% of their applicant pool (thats lower than the acceptance rate to Harvard med, for context).

I would recommend investing in the MSAR and looking for schools that fit your stat profile, don't have a high in-state or geographical preference, and that you might be interested in to supplement your list!

 

[vishvkl]

Although I believe that your lack of clinical hours and shadowing may be a concern, I think you will stand as an applicant due to your double major in economic and genetics. You are also doing research in economics which is pretty unique and your involvement in the band is a plus as well.

 

[vishvkl]

hello dr.chef