Too many reach schools? 3.88 / 39

[Salt Salt]

EDIT: Can someone move to this to the "What are my chances?" thread? Like I say below, I'm new here haha. That's where I thought I was posting

Hi all. I'm fairly new to these forums, and it feels a little weird to just "bare it all" like this, but here goes... I'm applying this cycle and want to know if I have too many reach schools and not enough back-ups.

Stats
cGPA: 3.88
sGPA: 3.76
MCAT: 39
Humanities major (B.S. though), Honors program

ECs
- Pre-health club (3 years, leadership positions)
- Smallish humanities club (4 years, president for last year)
- Hall council (freshman year only; won a university-wide award for best council member that year though)
- 150 hours of hospital volunteering
- 60 hours of general community service (food pantries)
- 700 hours of ED scribing
- 60 hours of shadowing

Research
- 1 summer bench (significant responsibilities, 2nd author on a pub)
- 1 summer HIV public health, upcoming gap year in same
- Various humanities/social science research includes:

• Honors thesis in my humanities major was on a topic in sociology of medicine. (given a distinction for top 2-3 out of the annual 30 theses completed in my major)
  
• Independent study in my major, got 1st place in a university-wide research competition open to any discipline
• Other small projects, many related to medicine. (One got 3rd place in the above competition.)

LORs
- Should be good. Include strong and positive letters from the two research PIs and the main humanities research advisor. (The humanities one is very, very strong.) Two science faculty letters will be mediocre, probably. :/
=====================

And now, the school list:

BU
Case Western
Columbia
Duke
Harvard
Johns Hopkins
Michigan State
Mount Sinai
NYU
Northwestern (if they ever send me their secondary, lol)
Oakland
Oregon
Penn
Thomas Jefferson
Stanford
Ohio State
Vermont
UChicago
U of Michigan
Pittsburgh
Vanderbilt
Rochester
WashU
Wayne State
Weill Cornell
Yale

===================
Summary:

Obviously from the above list, I'm setting my sights pretty high. That being said, I see a few big issues that have made me feel like I was initially being overconfident. For one, will my low science GPA hold me back from schools that my MCAT and cGPA otherwise qualify me for? Secondly, I have a terrible fear that I will have been overconfident in how I applied based on my GPA/MCAT, only to get rejected because the top schools want lots of research experience as well. (I have a pub but only 10 weeks of lab research. I have upcoming public health research but most of that is in the future. The rest is humanities.)

Thanks for the advice in advance all. Maybe @Goro can help answer the questions above.

Also, should I delete this thread eventually? Is there a realistic chance that putting this stuff out there could come back to bite me? I keep this account anonymous.

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[claduva94]

Your sGPA is not low. When did you submit?

 

[Salt Salt]

Primary app was verified in late June. Secondaries have been submitted sporadically since then.

 

[claduva94]

Then I'd say your list looks fairly solid.

 

[lmn]

Make sure you have practiced your interviewing, you definitely don't want that to be your weak point

 

[Goro]

Salt, you gotta work on the self esteem..the sGPA is NOT low!

Nothing wrong with aiming high. Do you have your state school on the list? if not, it might be worth adding. Suggest also consider Tulane, Loyola, USC, Dartmouth, Mt Sinai and Einstein.

EDIT: Can someone move to this to the "What are my chances?" thread? Like I say below, I'm new here haha. That's where I thought I was posting

Hi all. I'm fairly new to these forums, and it feels a little weird to just "bare it all" like this, but here goes... I'm applying this cycle and want to know if I have too many reach schools and not enough back-ups.

Stats
cGPA: 3.88
sGPA: 3.76
MCAT: 39
Humanities major (B.S. though), Honors program

ECs
- Pre-health club (3 years, leadership positions)
- Smallish humanities club (4 years, president for last year)
- Hall council (freshman year only; won a university-wide award for best council member that year though)
- 150 hours of hospital volunteering
- 60 hours of general community service (food pantries)
- 700 hours of ED scribing
- 60 hours of shadowing

Research
- 1 summer bench (significant responsibilities, 2nd author on a pub)
- 1 summer HIV public health, upcoming gap year in same
- Various humanities/social science research includes:

• Honors thesis in my humanities major was on a topic in sociology of medicine. (given a distinction for top 2-3 out of the annual 30 theses completed in my major)
  
• Independent study in my major, got 1st place in a university-wide research competition open to any discipline
• Other small projects, many related to medicine. (One got 3rd place in the above competition.)

LORs
- Should be good. Include strong and positive letters from the two research PIs and the main humanities research advisor. (The humanities one is very, very strong.) Two science faculty letters will be mediocre, probably. :/
=====================

And now, the school list:

BU
Case Western
Columbia
Duke
Harvard
Johns Hopkins
Michigan State
Mount Sinai
NYU
Northwestern (if they ever send me their secondary, lol)
Oakland
Oregon
Penn
Thomas Jefferson
Stanford
Ohio State
Vermont
UChicago
U of Michigan
Pittsburgh
Vanderbilt
Rochester
WashU
Wayne State
Weill Cornell
Yale

===================
Summary:

Obviously from the above list, I'm setting my sights pretty high. That being said, I see a few big issues that have made me feel like I was initially being overconfident. For one, will my low science GPA hold me back from schools that my MCAT and cGPA otherwise qualify me for? Secondly, I have a terrible fear that I will have been overconfident in how I applied based on my GPA/MCAT, only to get rejected because the top schools want lots of research experience as well. (I have a pub but only 10 weeks of lab research. I have upcoming public health research but most of that is in the future. The rest is humanities.)

Thanks for the advice in advance all. Maybe @Goro can help answer the questions above.

Also, should I delete this thread eventually? Is there a realistic chance that putting this stuff out there could come back to bite me? I keep this account anonymous.

 

[Salt Salt]

Thanks, Goro! I'll look into those schools. (Well, most---I ruled out Dartmouth for being too rural for my tastes and Mt Sinai was actually on the list already lol).