MD/PhD School List- 34, 3.86, upcoming first author publication

[glutamate]

Hi all,

I'm a rising senior at an ivy and applying this cycle (submitted my primary to a couple schools last week). My support system has been pretty great, but my parents never applied to grad school, and I'm still feeling a little lost with this. I'm also a Texas resident. I'm interested in cognitive neuroscience research and plan to specialize in psychiatry. I'd be extremely grateful for some help narrowing down my school list. Bonus points for anyone who can help me cross out some of the reaches I am attached to and/or help me find lesser-known, but still great neuro programs.

Stats:

• 34 MCAT (11 PS, 10 VR, 13 BS)
• 3.86 cGPA, 3.80 sGPA, 4.0 AO (B's in second semester orgo and both semesters of physics)

Research: 2 distinct, competitive summer fellowships, and research at my home institution on the same project from junior fall to senior spring, including this summer. I've given presentations on my research from last summer at two symposiums, and I'm going to be first author on the publication, hopefully within the next year. I'll also be a coauthor on another paper from my first research experience, but I'm not actually writing that one and am not sure how long it will take.

ECs: ~250 hours of clinical experience, including shadowing and volunteering. I'm extremely involved on campus, and my most meaningful activities, besides the honors research from junior-senior year, include being an RA and a TA for 2 years.

Schools: I know this is a ridiculous list for MD/PhD, especially with my MCAT score, and I need to narrow it down to make sure I can finish all the secondaries before school starts. Please help me get rid of some reaches. There's no way I can apply to 33 schools mostly MD/PhD.

(* means I've already submitted to AMCAS/TMDSAS).

• Harvard/MIT
• Stanford (might apply MD-only because I've heard from friends who have gone through the process that they are actually more like Penn, in that they may not want your MD application if you're denied MD/PhD)
• UCSF
• Penn (esp. not sure if I want to risk MD/PhD on this one...)
• WashU*
• Yale
• Columbia
• Duke
• Pritzker
• Michigan
• Cornell
• Pitt-CMU
• Northwestern
• Sinai*
• NYU
• Baylor*
• Emory
• Mayo
• Southwestern*
• Boston
• Brown* (the new MD/ScM program, not MD/PhD, which doesn't exist any more)
• Dartmouth
• Einstein*
• Georgetown
• Tufts
• Stony Brook*
• UT Houston*
• UT San Antonio

I'm thinking about adding:

• UT Galveston
• Jefferson
• Rush
• Buffalo
• Wisconsin

I might be able to do without Dartmouth, Michigan, Cornell, Emory, or UCSF, but that's still 28 schools if I add all of the ones I am thinking about. I'd appreciate any advice!

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[SynBio]

Why not add

UAB (MCAT: 33; GPA: 3.81), MSTP
Colorado (MCAT: 33; GPA: 3.74), MSTP
U Mass (MCAT: 34; GPA: 3.70), MSTP
U Cincinnati (MCAT: 34; GPA: 3.70), MSTP

And get rid of ~5 top-heavy schools. If you have the money, apply to around 25 schools. If this is more of an issue, maybe apply to 15-18 schools (6-10 schools with <34 MCAT, 4-6 schools ~ 34 MCAT, & 4-6 schools >34 MCAT). MHO.

 

[glutamate]

Thanks! I think I'll apply to Penn and Stanford MD-only to help lighten the MD/PhD load (and to not completely kill my chances at those schools). I don't know how I could forget about U Mass especially.

This helps a lot. I keep getting surprised that my MCAT score is the average and sometimes above average at some MSTPs.

Have you had to cut any top-heavy schools from your list? It's all such a crapshoot that I'm reluctant, but obvies I need to make some tough choices before I'm verified.

 

[Rowany]

Try using your interest in cognitive neuroscience as a filter - apply MD-PhD at the schools with the labs and research departments that best fits your research interest, regardless of their average MCAT score (which obvs, is just an average). You'd be a stronger candidate at those schools since you can speak passionately about what a great fit the school is for you, and vice versa. Plus, you won't be missing as much as an MD-only at a school with less strong research in your area of interest. You may consider adding UW, they have a really strong neuro program.

 

[SynBio]

Also, if you like Pennsylvania, Penn state has an MD/PhD program (the MD program has an average MCAT of 30, so the MD-PhD is probably around 33-34 but this is just a guess from what I have seen with other schools). Yeah, no problem, there are a few more schools that I have found where your scores are average/above average including

Rochester: MCAT: 33, GPA: ~3.6
Mayo: MCAT: 33, GPA: 3.86
Albert Einstein: MCAT: 34, GPA: 3.7
Medical University of South Carolina: MCAT: 33, GPA: 3.8
University of Pittsburgh: MCAT: 34, GPA: 3.7
University of Maryland: MCAT: 33, GPA: 3.7
UT Houston: MCAT: 34, GPA: 3.8
Stony Brook: MCAT: 34, GPA 3.6

I know you have some of these schools, but others may be interested in these statistics.

That's a good question. I have definitely left off top schools on my application list (Cornell, Pritzker, Yale, Columbia, etc.), but this is more because the schools did not fit my interests, not because they were top-tier. I have attempted to apply to a range of schools that fit my interest, but there is definitely a fair share of top-tier (more than mid- & lower-tier because the field I am interested in is relatively new and PIs/programs for this topic have not trickled down to mid- to lower-tier schools in large numbers yet). Additionally, one reason that I have applied to more top-tier percentile wise (8/26 in the top 10, 10/26 in top 10-30, and 8/26 in 30+) is because I saved money just for this reason. Of course the ranking here is up for debate...

Try using your interest in cognitive neuroscience as a filter - apply MD-PhD at the schools with the labs and research departments that best fits your research interest, regardless of their average MCAT score (which obvs, is just an average). You'd be a stronger candidate at those schools since you can speak passionately about what a great fit the school is for you, and vice versa. Plus, you won't be missing as much as an MD-only at a school with less strong research in your area of interest. You may consider adding UW, they have a really strong neuro program.

I will agree with part of this, in that you should definitely use your research as the "main" filter for picking schools. However, that said, you must "think" practically as well. This means that you must take into account the MD-PhD program's representative metric (median, mean, etc.) for whatever application characteristic (research, MCAT, GPA, etc.) that is important to that program of interest because there may be no one on the admissions committee with interests in that particular research. Additionally, they may not even know about topic X in research Y, so if the stats aren't there, why would they give you an interview if they know nothing about your research? If the only thing you are interested in is at "top ten" schools, but your the application values are well below their average statistics, you may very well never be given the chance to talk "passionately" about the research that interests you.

Anyway, it comes down to money for the number of schools you want to apply to, but you probably already knew that. Be prepared to spend several thousand in primary, secondary, and potential travel fees. Its good to cover some middle & lower-tier schools that fit your research so that you don't have to reapply (but only apply to programs that you would DEFINITELY go to if you were accepted nowhere else). Cheers.

 

[glutamate]

I definitely appreciate these responses. The stats help a lot, and I'm definitely adding UW; their neuro website gave me chills, and I loved reading their admissions page.

Woooo. I'm working on a secondary but I'll update y'all when I have a more definitive list--hopefully with only 25 schools on it.

 

[Neuronix]

@SynBio where are you getting all that data from?

It makes no sense to me to apply to Penn MD only as a backup if your research is strong and your MCAT is a little low. Their average MCAT score for MD matriculants is more or less the same as their average MCAT score for MD/PhD matriculants to the best of my increasingly outdated knowledge. In the MD/PhD world, a strong performance in research and GPA may get you in when MCAT is a little low. In the MD world, other things count more when evaluating you, and your research usually isn't as important to the adcoms.

 

[SynBio]

@Neuronix I got this data from each individual mstp/non-mstp website. I am going to compile all this data and post when I am done to keep this information updated. Most of these schools used mean (not median) as the metric of choice and was for 2013 matriculants.

 

[glutamate]

I didn't want to post again until I had my list narrowed down to 25, but I'm at 29. still.

I have 4 schools with MCAT averages <34, 9 that match my 34, and 16 schools with 35-37 MCAT averages. I want to knock out 4 of the reaches to get down to 25, but all of these schools have faculty I would love to work with.

I'm torn and need to work on the secondaries I've already received. This is my list. * still means I've submitted the primary.

> 34: (16 Schools)

o HARVARD (37, 3.9 (MSAR only))*

o STANFORD (37, 3.9 (MSAR only))

o PENN (36, 3.8 (MSTP Website))

o WASHU (36, 3.9 (MSTP Website)) *

o YALE (37, 3.9 (MSAR only))*

o COLUMBIA (36, 3.8 (MSAR only))

o DUKE (36, 3.8 (MSAR only))

o UW (37, 3.9 (MSTP website))

o PRITZKER (37, 3.9 (MSAR only))

o UCLA (35, 3.8 (MSAR only))

o MICHIGAN (36, 3.8 (MSAR only))

o CORNELL (36, 3.74 (MSTP website))

o SINAI (37, 3.9 (MSAR only)) *

o BAYLOR (36-37, 3.91 (MSTP website)) *

o BOSTON (35, 3.8 (MSAR only)); non-MSTP *

o UT HOUSTON (35, 3.8 (MD/PhD Website)); non-MSTP *

= 34: (9 Schools)

o CINCINATTI (34, 3.7 (MSTP website)) *

o PITT/CMU (34, 3.7 (MSTP website)) *

o UTSW (34, 3.9 (MSAR only)) *

o ROCHESTER (34, 3.8 (MSAR only)) *

o EINSTEIN (34, 3.7 (MSTP Website)) *

o UMASS (34, 3.6 (MSTP Website)) *

o STONY BROOK (34, 3.7 (MSTP Website)) *

o UT SAN ANTONIO (33-36, 3.7 (MD/PhD Website)); non-MSTP *

< 34: (4 Schools)

o MAYO (33, 3.86 (MSTP Website)) *

o (MD-only) BROWN (33, 3.8) *

o GEORGETOWN (32, 3.8 (MSAR only)); non-MSTP *

o UT GALVESTON (~30, ~3.5 (admissions admin)); non-MSTP *

 

[SynBio]

@glutamate
Do you have any geographic preferences?

I tried to eliminate schools that had few PIs doing research I was interested in (i.e. less than 2 PIs may be problematic). Have you looked at specific PIs yet? If so, maybe count the number of PIs you would potentially be interested in working for at each particular reach school and then eliminate the schools with the lowest number of potential PIs.

Another way might be to give a score value to PIs and eliminate schools with the lowest subjective scores (based on number of graduate students/post-docs, publications, grants, etc.). Just an opinion.


Also, I think the data from the MSAR might be slightly outdated/off for some schools, but many stats do look around the right values. For example, I know UTSA has increased there median values to a 33-36 MCAT (from the website) in the last couple of years.

 

[glutamate]

@SynBio, re: geographic preferences, a little. I'm willing to go south for the schools in Texas and WashU, but not UAB. I'm extremely hesitant to eliminate any of my reaches based on geography alone.

I have looked at specific PIs, but I think you're right, it might be time to actually start counting them. I'll have to do it anyway when I have secondaries, so might as well start now.

I edited my previous post to reflect your correction re: San Antonio (thanks!). I'm going to go add Rochester, Cincinnati, and Pitt to AMCAS so my <34 schools are covered, go work out, and come back to this. Thanks everyone for the help so far!