MD & DO Low GPA, Solid MCAT, non-trad. Do I even have a shot at MD?

[leviathan601]

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[Goro]

Clinicals ECs need to be bumped up; the SMP + your MCAT will buy love from those schools that reward reinvention; I recommend skipping Northwestern, but try Duke, and add U Miami, Albany, Vandy, NYMC, Columbia, Tulane, Gtown

Delete UCR unless you're from the Inland Empire

There's only one Touro in CA, try that, and Western if you want to stay close to CA.

You have a very compelling story.

 

[theboatman]

Apply to Yale as well.

 

[leviathan601]

Thank you so much for your feedback. I know that I need to work on my list, and I don't want to "throw away" applications on schools who will most likely not consider me. Thanks for your advice.

 

[GrapesofRath]

You dont need DO schools a good MD list and I think youll get IIs.

First thing Id do is look at where the SMP grads from your program end up most frequently. Those are the schools Id target. In particular, for lower tiers I would mostly focus on the lower tiers grads from your program routinely get accepted into frequently.

First school I would look at is your SMP host program. Wayne State, UIC, VCU, Rosalind, Cincinnati, Case, Boston U, Miami, Duke, Emory, Wake Forest, Va Tech, Tulane, Tufts, Case Western, Saint Louis, Keck amongst others are some I'd give consideration to as well. Those schools that have their own SMPs are ones I would pay attention to as well.

 

[leviathan601]

Clinicals ECs need to be bumped up; the SMP + your MCAT will buy love from those schools that reward reinvention; I recommend skipping Northwestern, but try Duke, and add U Miami, Albany, Vandy, NYMC, Columbia, Tulane, Gtown

Delete UCR unless you're from the Inland Empire

There's only one Touro in CA, try that, and Western if you want to stay close to CA.

You have a very compelling story.

Thank you so much for your feedback - it is really a big help to me. I had a couple questions if you have any time to read through:

I wanted to elaborate a little bit and get your opinion on if this changes my chances at all. During my year in the cardiology lab, I did have daily patient exposure. I was responsible for consenting patients for research studies, but also taking vitals, medical histories and performing EKGs. 90% of the patients I saw were research subjects, but we also held open clinics that were for anyone at the hospital. I worked on several studies, so I performed many different tests depending on the study. I’m wondering if you think that would prove to be strong enough clinical experience. Other than that, I am also starting a part-time caretaker position and will be assisting people with early stage dementia in their homes. This is a paid position (I’m not doing it for the pay as I have a full-time job, but I have a friend who has had a wonderful experience and told me about it).


Secondly, I wanted to provide a more complete list of schools that I’m considering – I’m going to be adding some of the schools you mentioned, so it would be nice to remove schools that I have no shot at. I know that many of the CA schools are longshots, but I would like to keep them because my family lives here/instate tuition. My ideal school is UC Davis.

UCSF
UCLA
UC Davis
UC Irvine
UC San Diego
USC
Stanford
BU
Tufts
Harvard
Brown University
Cornell
Columbia
Albert Einstein
Mount Sinai
New York Medical College
NYU
Drexel
UPenn
Sidney Kimmel Thomas J.
Cooper Medical School
Temple University
Rosalind Franklin
Loyola
Rush Medical College
University of Chicago
Georgetown
George Washington
Johns Hopkins
Touro DO
Western DO
Duke
Tulane

Thanks in advance if you get the time to reply.

 

[7331poas]

Seems a little high from my uneducated eye. he has a 3.2. Even his SMP is a 3.7 which is around the median GPA.

 

[GrapesofRath]

Remove Stanford Harvard Brown Cornell Mt Sinai NYU Penn Cooper Rowan Pritzker and JHU for starters. Depending on which SMP you did you might be able to remove GW Gtown and NYMC without reducing your chances either, maybe even Drexel and Temple as well. I dont really think you need DO schools either unless you would turn down an MD acceptance OOS to stay in CA; at best maybe apply later in the cycle if you arent getting positive MD news.

I would personally probably add UIC, U of Arizona, Saint Louis, Medical College of Wisconsin, Stony Brook, Miami and SUNY Downstate.

 

[mathnerd88]

Depending on when you took the MCAT, you might need to retake since some schools only take them 3 years before matriculation.

If you took the MCAT before August 2014, plan for a retake.

 

[leviathan601]

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[leviathan601]

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[GrapesofRath]

Thank you for the advice! I agree I need to remove some of the upper tier schools and that will help. Are you thinking that GW, Gtown, and NYMC might be too much of a reach as well? I had heard they're pretty good bets for people who went my route (low GPA, did SMP)... Also same question about Drexel and Temple - do you think they're too competitive for me?

The programs like GW and NYMC I listed tend to get tons and tons of applications and are hence low yield. Furthermore, those schools do not interview many people who have an MCAT score at or above their 90th percentile. The yield on such applicants for the school just isnt very high. What might perhaps change things to some extent is if you did an SMP at a program that historically is able to send a number of its graduates to those specific schools and hence serves as a "feeder" to those schools. That's part of why I asked where you did your SMP.

 

[gyngyn]

Is that your only MCAT?

 

[leviathan601]

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[leviathan601]

Is that your only MCAT?

Yes, my one and only.

 

[GrapesofRath]

Oh I see...that's a little discouraging. It's hard to find the sweet spot and not aim too high or too low. I did the BU MAMS program.

I'm sure you are aware of this list. Good news is almost every school is on this list(even Pritzker, Pitt, Northwestern, Duke, Mt Sinai, U of Michigan and Columbia); bad news is they dont tell you the number of people who ended up at each of these schools to give an idea if any of them your SMP repeatedly "feeds" into per se.

http://www.bumc.bu.edu/gms/mams-gra...admitted-to-the-following-us-medical-schools/

Your best bet is to talk with your BU MAMS advisors. They absolutely will have an idea of which schools grads from your SMP tend to end up in and which medical schools your SMP "feeds into" per se. If that list includes the Drexels and NYMCs of the world, go ahead and include them. Those schools just arent great choices on the surface usually because they get so many applications, they just arent high yield options. It might be worthwhile to include apps to some schools that have host SMPs which do include some lower tier schools. It's just a decision that's best made by talking with your advisors and seeing where the MAMs grads tend to fair well at in admission. Cases like yours are unique and best dealt with on a individual case by case basis.

 

[leviathan601]

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[leviathan601]

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