Reapplicant - cGPA - 3.86, sGPA - 3.94, MCAT 30 (11P/9V/10B)

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SaiphRigel

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Hello everyone,

I've been posting in the forums for almost a year now (mostly in the School-Specific threads) and this is the first thread I have made. I am most likely going to reapply in a couple of weeks once AMCAS 2015 opens up (because I am being pragmatic about my slim chances on two waitlists) and wanted to ask about my chances for this coming cycle. I apologize in advance for what will be a very long post, but I feel that if I provide as much information as possible, I may receive better advice.

This previous cycle, I submitted my AMCAS near the beginning of July and it was not verified until the third week of August. I was a little slow with secondary submission: I had a few done by the end of August, most done by mid September, and 1-2 done by the middle of October (for some reason I decided to hold on to these secondaries). Looking back, my PS was not that great and I did not do too good of a job with a lot of my secondary essays (because I did not pre-write any essays and I rushed). I am going to finish revamping my PS soon and get it looked over.

LOR were fine - 1 committee letter with 3 individual letters. I will ask my pre-med advisor to reupload these letters and I will garner 1-2 new LOR.

Stats:
PA resident
cGPA - 3.86
sGPA - 3.94
MCAT - 30 (11P/9V/10B) - early July, 2013 administration

Both GPA values are above average, but I know my MCAT score isn't the best. I was averaging ~33-34 on the AAMC practice tests (I took all the available practice exams) but I scored a 31 on AAMC 11 (which is probably the most representative of all the practice exams). I was contemplating retaking the MCAT this July with a different study approach, but I do not want to risk scoring lower so I decided against the retake. Plus 30 is a reasonable score and I do not care if I'm Top 20 material or not, I just want to attend a medical school in the U.S. (they are all great in their own way).

Extracurriculars:

~300 hours clinical volunteering as a Nurse Aide for 1 1/2 years.
~20 hours shadowing (10 hours observing cardiac bypass surgeries and 10 hours shadowing Neurologist)
- I am going to shadow the Neurologist in the very near future on 3 separate days; he has also offered to write me a rec letter for this upcoming cycle.

over 1000 hours employment for 4 years - parents have a business, so I would work on weekends during school/research internship and during holidays. The only employees are me and my parents and the nature of our work demands much manual labor, so this was a major experience (and not some sort of filler).

~100 hours non-clinical volunteering for 8 months in a local elementary school tutoring struggling students during school
~80 hours non-clinical volunteering for 9 months in an after-school program for middle school students as a tutor
~100 hours - leadership position in a university club

~300 hours over 1 1/2 years as a lab assistant
~1000 hours employment over 6 months - research internship in lab where I was a lab assistant

- won a university-wide award - recommended by my PI
- got my name on a poster/abstract for a conference

~I also enjoy astronomy, so I added a couple of activities related to my astronomy hobby.

Gap year activities:

Since applying, I started out working in the lab I mentioned above, but the lab moved at the end of the summer so I had to try looking for another job. In addition, I maintained my clinical volunteering position until December (this winter made it so hard to commute to volunteer - an hour away from home). I was not able to acquire a job until about a month ago when I became an ER scribe (which I must say is such a great experience so far). During my time of "unemployment", I was working 60+ hours/week in my family's business, so that kept me very busy. I should also be starting another non-clinical volunteer position soon as a GRE/ESL tutor, but I've been waiting for the past month for the coordinator to assign me to students (she recently promised she should have an assignment for me soon). I have always wanted to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity (because I like building things :), and helping others of course), so once everything cools down, I will register and volunteer for a local chapter.


Schools I applied to this cycle:
Boston University - pre-interview rejection
Case Western - pre-interview rejection
Drexel - pre-interview hold - rejection
Jefferson - pre-interview rejection
Temple - II - waitlist
Penn State - II - waitlist
Hofstra - II - rejection
GW - pre-interview hold - rejection
Loyola - pre-interview hold - rejection
Mayo - LOR request - pre-interview rejection
MCW - small pool - pre-interview rejection
Rush - pre-interview rejection
Stony Brook - pre-interview rejection
U Miami - pre-interview rejection
Tufts - pre-interview rejection
U Maryland - pre-interview hold - rejection
U Virginia - pre-interview rejection
U Pittsburgh - pre-interview rejection
Wake Forest - pre-interview rejection

Looking at the list now, it was a little too top-heavy for my liking. I guess at the time, I thought I had nothing to lose (except a ton of money). I do want to reapply to the Philly schools since I am from the area and I love it. I am open to other suggestions though.

I am contemplating applying to DO schools this cycle too - I just need to make sure I have the LOR from a DO in hand before I do that and I want to have my AMCAS in first (since I heard the DO cycle is longer).

In regards to my interviews, my interview skills are somewhere in the middle: not too great but not bad. This is an aspect of my candidacy that I will need to address and fix.

I believe I fleshed out everything, but if I missed anything, let me know and I'll update this post. I'll wait for some feedback before asking questions. But do you think I have a good chance as a reapplicant to be admitted to medical school next cycle?

Thanks in advance for all of your help!

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I think you made some critical errors last time. Your primary was in a little late and your secondary was in pretty late so you substantially decreased your chances just because of that.
I mean by the time you were submitting secondaries in mid-september people were already interviewing.

Someone with your stats and reapplicant status needs to apply very early. You should have your secondaries done and submitted by middle of June and first week of July. If you apply early and broadly you will get it. Open up your horizon to some lower ranked schools and I'd say go all out and apply to 30+ schools you're bound to get in somewhere.

In Summary I would say with your GPA/MCAT and ECs you definitely don't need to retake anything. All you have to do is APPLY EARLY AND BROADLY. If you wanted to do something I would say squeeze in a few hours with primary care shadowing.

Here are some other schools you should consider if you haven't considered applying to them yet.

VCU
EVMS
Rosalind & Franklin
SLU
MCW
Tulane
Albany
 
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I went through your list (without looking at the outcome) and counted 5, maybe 6 schools where you had a fair to good chance at an interview. That's not usually enough with a 30 MCAT (though I respect the decision not to re-take).
An early ap to at least a dozen MD schools that might interview you and some select DO schools and you'll be celebrating this time next year.
 
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Firstly, being an astronomy buff, kudos to you on your screen name. Not too many people know about the stars in Orion. You hhave too many high-tier and OOS public schools...the latter favor the home team. It looks like you were successful in landing IIs, but that you'll need to work on interview skills (assuming no red flags in the app).

goro suggests

Drexel
Jefferson
Temple
Penn State
Loyola
MCW
Rush
Tufts
Wake Forest
TCMC
Albany
NYMC
SLU
Creighton
All new MD schools
ANY DO program

Good idea.
I am contemplating applying to DO schools this cycle too - I just need to make sure I have the LOR from a DO in hand before I do that and I want to have my AMCAS in first (since I heard the DO cycle is longer).
 
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I think you made some critical errors last time. Your primary was in a little late and your secondary was in pretty late so you substantially decreased your chances just because of that.
I mean by the time you were submitting secondaries in mid-september people were already interviewing.

Someone with your stats and reapplicant status needs to apply very early. You should have your secondaries done and submitted by middle of June and first week of July. If you apply early and broadly you will get it. Open up your horizon to some lower ranked schools and I'd say go all out and apply to 30+ schools you're bound to get in somewhere.

In Summary I would say with your GPA/MCAT and ECs you definitely don't need to retake anything. All you have to do is APPLY EARLY AND BROADLY. If you wanted to do something I would say squeeze in a few hours with primary care shadowing.

Here are some other schools you should consider if you haven't considered applying to them yet.

VCU
EVMS
Rosalind & Franklin
SLU
MCW
Tulane
Albany

Hi rodmichael82,

Thank you for your input. I knew the timing of my AMCAS submission was going to hurt me from the beginning, and the verification delay exacerbated the ill effect. I am planning on getting my primary in on June 3, but June 5 at the latest. I will probably pre-write secondaries this time around once I submit my primary so that that the quality of these essays does not decrease with every secondary I fill out (as it did last time due to rushing). I do not know if I can afford to apply to 30 or more schools (target is 15-20), but I am going to apply more broadly to target schools.

From what I've read in the forums, I think Tulane likes people with higher MCAT scores. I will apply to the other schools you mentioned though.

Thanks again for your help!
 
I went through your list (without looking at the outcome) and counted 5, maybe 6 schools where you had a fair to good chance at an interview. That's not usually enough with a 30 MCAT (though I respect the decision not to re-take).
An early ap to at least a dozen MD schools that might interview you and some select DO schools and you'll be celebrating this time next year.

Hello gyngyn,

First, let me start off by thanking you for just being so helpful and enlightening us with information about the admissions process and other aspects of the application cycle in the Pre-Med Allopathic forum (especially recently in the Panic Thread and Waitlist Support Thread, although I'm more of a lurker in those threads).

I completely agree with you. I did apply too top-heavy given my MCAT score. I wish I had thoroughly looked into applying to more target schools instead, but I can't go back and change the past (I wish I could though, but I bet everyone else thinks that, too). I am currently working hard on being able to submit my new application the first day AMCAS 2015 allows submissions, so that should be helpful in increasing my chances for acceptance this upcoming cycle. And I will take your advice on finding MD and DO schools that may interview me.

Thank you again for being so helpful!
 
Firstly, being an astronomy buff, kudos to you on your screen name. Not too many people know about the stars in Orion. You hhave too many high-tier and OOS public schools...the latter favor the home team. It looks like you were successful in landing IIs, but that you'll need to work on interview skills (assuming no red flags in the app).

goro suggests

Drexel
Jefferson
Temple
Penn State
Loyola
MCW
Rush
Tufts
Wake Forest
TCMC
Albany
NYMC
SLU
Creighton
All new MD schools
ANY DO program

Good idea.
I am contemplating applying to DO schools this cycle too - I just need to make sure I have the LOR from a DO in hand before I do that and I want to have my AMCAS in first (since I heard the DO cycle is longer).

Hello Goro,

First, I also want to thank you for always being present throughout the forums and giving us your sound advice to navigate such a long and complicated process. Thank you for complimenting my username. Saiph and Rigel were two of the first stars I observed. I thought both names sounded amazing and decided to merge them. I think Betelgeuse and Bellatrix are the more famous pair in Orion, but that is just conjecture. (By the way, if you were interested in knowing, my avatar is a picture (NASA captured and edited) of the Lagoon Nebula in Sagittarius, the first nebula I observed - I did not observe the Orion Nebula until much later for some odd reason).

I do not believe I have any red flags in my app (other than the 3.9 GPA and 30 MCAT discrepancy), but I will be sure to ask. My initial school list for this cycle was too top-heavy as you said, and your list contains the target schools I was looking for (although I will be a reapplicant at some of those schools).

Thanks again for your help!
 
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