School List Help - 32M, 3.76cGPA, 3.65sGPA

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

jmlms

Full Member
10+ Year Member
Joined
Oct 9, 2012
Messages
37
Reaction score
4
Hello all, I am a longtime lurker here on SDN but as it has come to my time to begin working on the AMCAS, I have decided to seek any input or advice on my school list. As I stated in the title, my MCAT is 32M (9VR, 11PS, 12BS) and my current GPA is 3.76 with a BCPM GPA of 3.65.

I have spent 2 years working on an independent research project (including receiving a research grant to work on it all last summer). I am a student in the Honors Program at my school, which is not your typical honors college. In my program, I am one of two (we started with five) molecular biology majors. The honors program is modeled after the tutorial systems at Oxford and Cambridge: most of our learning is independent work and we have tutorials once a week to discuss essays we write, primary literature and textbook readings. The honors program provide the opportunity to study at Oxford or Cambridge over the course of your Junior year. This isn't your typical "study abroad" program. I currently am a student of St. Catherine's College at the University of Oxford and have taken classes here alongside "real" Oxford students (of which group I actually am a member--you have to be accepted by the University even as a Visiting Student). The final component of my honors program is that we have to take comprehensive final examinations (again, modeled after the Oxbridge systems) that will account for 2 credit hours for every tutorial you take (1-2 a semester plus the ones in Oxford). It is also important to note that for the courses I have taken at Oxford, I have been graded by my University tutors and those grades have directly gone to my transcript and are included in my GPA. I am not simply here on a pass/fail system as many students who study abroad are.

I have above average ECs with some shadowing and volunteering. I haven't been able to do any shadowing or volunteering while I have been abroad but I already have plans set up to do more when I return (is there a way I can/should designate this in my application?). I also got a late start on shadowing/volunteering because I didn't decide on medicine until the end of my Freshman year.

I know that was a long explanation of my situation, but I think it makes me unique and, hopefully, will help me stand out with my average stats. I have healthy, close relationships with my professors and I anticipate some killer LORs. Another factor that may or may not be worth noting is that I took my MCAT in September (9/11/12) at the beginning of my junior year, which is earlier than normal. I know that my writing score is incredibly low, but it isn't a good indicator of my actual writing skills. What happened is that I didn't even practice for the writing section because I knew they were taking it out the following year, which meant that all of the traditional applicants against me wouldn't even have a writing score (of course if I knew that would result in an M, I would've practiced a little bit :)) I anticipate that I will have more than one LOR explain my writing skills.

I am an Oklahoma resident, but I go to a liberal arts university in the Kansas City area (on the MO side, if that's important).

Oh! Final thing. I have qualified for the Fee Assistance Program through AMCAS, so I get 14 applications free. Also, do any of you know if that qualifies me as socioeconomically disadvantaged (or how that qualification comes about)?

I know I have a better chance of winning the lottery than getting into some of these schools, but I just wanted to apply because, well, you never know if you don't try. Some of these I am pretty confident I will apply to and some I have just begun to consider. Some I am not sure about at all but I am curious what you think. I would also love any recommendations for any schools not on my list.

Thank you in advance for any help


Stanford
University of Chicago
Northwestern University
Georgetown University
Vanderbilt
Case Western Reserve
University of Oklahoma
University of Kansas
UMKC
Boston University
Brown University
Pittsburgh
George Washington University
Loyola
Tufts
Rush
Tulane
St. Louis University
Creighton
Jefferson Medical College

Members don't see this ad.
 
Last edited:
I don't know about schools in the mid-west because I didn't apply to any of them but:

xStanford
xUniversity of Chicago
xNorthwestern University
Georgetown University
xVanderbilt
xCase Western Reserve
University of Oklahoma
University of Kansas
UMKC
*Boston University
Brown University
xPittsburgh
*George Washington University
Loyola
*Tufts
Rush
Tulane
St. Louis University
Creighton
*Jefferson Medical College

From just a cursory glance of the schools that I recognize I see 6 reaches (denoted by an x), and 4 schools that receive well over 10,000 applications a year making it hard to gauge your performance there (denoted by a *). This leaves 3 or 4 schools I feel like you have a good shot at that I recognize (georgetown, loyola, rush, and maybe brown...although if I remember correctly they save a LOT of seats for assurance programs). I don't know anything about the remaining schools so I can't comment.

I'd add in Drexel and Temple since you already have a philly school on the list. I'd also consider applying to NYMC, Albany, VCU, Einstein, Hofstra, and maybe even Quinnipiac (although I don't have any experience with that one) in order to increase the number of schools you would have a fighting chance at.

Once again, I know nothing about a good handful of your schools so you might have applied wonderfully! I'm hoping someone with more experience in these mid-west schools can comment :)
 
Goobs, thank you so much!

I will look into the suggestions you have made. Hopefully someone else out there with some knowledge of the Midwest schools can give me input in that area :)
 
Members don't see this ad :)
Midwest:
There's the Medical College of Wisconsin. Half of its class is out of state, and it's a solid medical school. I'll be applying there.

There's also Rosalind Franklin in Chicago, which I believe has a good research reputation.

Mayo Medical School in Rochester, Minnesota. Might be a bit of a reach.

Are you familiar at all with the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine? The MSAR has some weird numbers on it, and I'm a bit interested in Kansas City.

EDIT:
Or I guess you wanted input on Rush and Loyola. I imagine those would be relatively more competitive than Rosalind Franklin or Medical College of Wisconsin. Anyway, I'm definitely not an expert on this.

Looks like we might be competing for spots in the Midwest. Good luck, on paper I think we would look similar.
 
I know that the UMKC stats can be a bit all over the place because they have a six-year MD program for those coming directly out of high school and I don't think it is currently an extremely successful program (at least that is what my advisor told me a couple years ago). I don't know much else other than it is a common application choice for pre-meds at my school since we are already in the KC area.

It's cool to know you are interested in KC! Like I said, I have only really lived there for a couple years, but I love it and I am willing to answer questions you have to the best of my ability.

Thank you for your suggestions. I will look into those schools and see how I think they fit into my list.

Best of luck to you in this application cycle!
 
Top