Nontrad Preparing for Reapplication: Looking for Advice, School List

[Makaroni]

Hello! I am new to SDN so thank you for your patience as I navigate the website and learn its features. I am preparing my second application for the 2024-2025 cycle and would greatly appreciate advice and help building a new school list. I am currently a California resident (born and raised, graduated high school there, maintained official residency for several reasons both related and unrelated to last cycle) but I am in the process of establishing official Washington State residency (I do not want to share too much personal information; I have been living and working here for more than one year now. This may pertain to WSU's medical school.)

Graduated in Fall 2021 with BS in Genetics and Cell Biology, Honors track. sGPA: 3.63 cGPA: 3.72 MCAT 501 (2021) then 507 (2022) PREview: 5 (2022) then 6 (2023) Casper: 50th to 74th percentile/3rd Quartile (2023)

Activities: I will list current hours rather than last cycle's hours; some of them have not changed.
Clinical Volunteering: Hospital volunteering in palliative care 170 hours.
Clinical Paid Employment: Medical Assistant in General Surgery 4670 hours so far. Between now and last cycle I earned an additional certification in phlebotomy for Washington State as well as the national certification. This is my current full-time job.
Presentations/Posters: Honors Thesis Dissertation for my undergraduate senior project, 1 hour
Clinical Observation: Ambulance Ride Along, 32 hours.
Conference Attended: American College of Medical Genetics 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting, 12 hours. I was just an attendee, not a presenter.
Teaching/TA/Tutoring: Microbio and Genetics Tutoring, 55 hours. This was not a paid position, if that is important.
Physician Shadowing: Several different specialties and virtual shadowing, 57 hours.
Leadership: Peer mentorship program for URM students in STEM at my university, 203 hours.
Non-Clinical Volunteer: Peer Health Education program at my university, 73 hours. No patient involvement, more of a public outreach program.
Non-Clinical Paid Employment: Science Camp Counselor, 336 hours
Research: So far 2253 hours, both in university and with the surgeon I work with. I have been acknowledged in 12 publications, and as of a few days ago one paper I am a co-author on has been accepted for publication (yay!) but it is not published as of right now. This will be new for this upcoming cycle.

School List 2023-2024:
Belmont - secondary (I squeaked in at the last minute in February, they were done interviewing ~3 weeks after I sent in secondary)
CUSM
Charles Drew
Rosalind Franklin - secondary
Drexel - secondary
George Washington - secondary
Georgetown - secondary
Kaiser - secondary
USC (Keck) - secondary
MCW - secondary
OHSU - secondary (chose not to send it due to OOS, dumb decision I know)
Rush - secondary
UC Davis - secondary
UC Irvine - secondary
UCLA
UC Riverside - secondary
UCSD - secondary
UCSF
UND (Had a family tie) - secondary
UW
I unfortunately did not receive any interview invitations. I feel my essays may have been subpar, I am working on revising them now. I recently signed up for a mentor on Prescribe It Forward, still waiting on a match. I only applied MD last cycle, I will be applying DO as well this time around but have not looked into those as much lately. Any feedback or advice you may have is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

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[Faha]

Virtual shadowing has no value. Your lack of non clinical volunteering (some schools screen at 150 hours) will limit your chances for interviews. Your best chances are at DO schools and I suggest these:
PNWU-COM
TUCOM-CA
WESTERN
AZCOM
TUNCOM
ATSU-KCOM
KCU-COM
DMU-COM
CCOM
MU-COM
LECOM
PCOM
NYITCOM
Touro-NY
For MD schools you could try these:
U Washington
Washington State
California University
Loma Linda (if you fit their mission)
TCU
Rosalind Franklin
Medical College Wisconsin
Oakland Beaumont
Belmont
NOVA MD
Wake Forest
Virginia Commonwealth
George Washington
Drexel
Temple
Penn State
Hackensack
Albany
Vermont
Quinnipiac
Alice Walton (when it opens)
Roseman (when it opens)

 

[AJS59]

As said, you'll need the DO on top of the MD schools.

To clarify what Faha said more: try to see about non-clinical volunteering with an underserved community (examples include: food distribution, shelter work, job/tax prep, transport services, or housing rehab) to get that to 150 hours. You'll also need 50 hours of actual shadowing, and since you're looking at DO schools I'd try to shadow some DOs.

I understand time is short given things started today, but you could build up some hours if you hold off on submitting your primary for AMCAS later in June and your AACOMAS primary even later than that (I am not familiar with the DO process, but they seem a bit more lenient). This shouldn't disadvantage you too much in the application process, especially if you also work to rewrite secondaries as well.

 

[Makaroni]

Virtual shadowing has no value. Your lack of non clinical volunteering (some schools screen at 150 hours) will limit your chances for interviews. Your best chances are at DO schools and I suggest these:
PNWU-COM
TUCOM-CA
WESTERN
AZCOM
TUNCOM
ATSU-KCOM
KCU-COM
DMU-COM
CCOM
MU-COM
LECOM
PCOM
NYITCOM
Touro-NY
For MD schools you could try these:
U Washington
Washington State
California University
Loma Linda (if you fit their mission)
TCU
Rosalind Franklin
Medical College Wisconsin
Oakland Beaumont
Belmont
NOVA MD
Wake Forest
Virginia Commonwealth
George Washington
Drexel
Temple
Penn State
Hackensack
Albany
Vermont
Quinnipiac
Alice Walton (when it opens)
Roseman (when it opens)

Thank you very much for your help, I greatly appreciate it! I have some feelers out for non-clinical volunteer positions in my area. I will wait until June to submit primaries.

 

[Makaroni]

As said, you'll need the DO on top of the MD schools.

To clarify what Faha said more: try to see about non-clinical volunteering with an underserved community (examples include: food distribution, shelter work, job/tax prep, transport services, or housing rehab) to get that to 150 hours. You'll also need 50 hours of actual shadowing, and since you're looking at DO schools I'd try to shadow some DOs.

I understand time is short given things started today, but you could build up some hours if you hold off on submitting your primary for AMCAS later in June and your AACOMAS primary even later than that (I am not familiar with the DO process, but they seem a bit more lenient). This shouldn't disadvantage you too much in the application process, especially if you also work to rewrite secondaries as well.

Thank you for your feedback! Most of my shadowing thankfully was in person with physicians, I had the different occurrences divided by date on the AMCAS App. Should I cut the virtual shadowing out completely? I’ll have to look at my log to see which was which, I’m not at my computer right now.

I think waiting a month into the cycle won’t hurt, submitting too early without enough growth from my first application may not look too good if I reapply to some of the same schools. I have a few things nearby for volunteering so that’s a good place to start! Thanks again Faha and AJS59!

 

[AJS59]

Thank you for your feedback! Most of my shadowing thankfully was in person with physicians, I had the different occurrences divided by date on the AMCAS App. Should I cut the virtual shadowing out completely? I’ll have to look at my log to see which was which, I’m not at my computer right now.

I think waiting a month into the cycle won’t hurt, submitting too early without enough growth from my first application may not look too good if I reapply to some of the same schools. I have a few things nearby for volunteering so that’s a good place to start! Thanks again Faha and AJS59!

If you actually accumulate the in-person shadowing then yes; if not then it's better than nothing but not THAT much better