WAMC 519 MCAT, sGPA: 3.91, cGPA: 3.90, Advice about ECs/school list

[tsirish20]

Hi everyone, I am new to this so please don’t roast me too hard if this isn’t the most high-quality post of all time. I am a current junior in undergrad, and I am wondering about my chances applying to start medical school fall 2024. My premed advisor told me that I can proceed with applying during this cycle, but I am just worried I don’t have enough in my extracurriculars to be successful.

1. cGPA: 3.901 sGPA: 3.910
2. MCAT: 519 (127, 130, 130, 132)
3. Wisconsin
4. White/Caucasian
5. University of Notre Dame
6. Clinical experience: 720 hours Ophthalmic Technician (all direct patient interaction), 40 hours Hospice Volunteer, 16 hours volunteering with elderly patients at an inner-city hospital.
7. Research: 80 hours literature review writing a patient resource for the National Organization of Rare Disorders, working on getting this published currently
8. 25 hours shadowing (ophthalmology, plastic surgery, general surgery, ENT)
9. Non-Clinical volunteering: 42 hours working with Boys and Girls Club, 40 hours volunteer tutoring for English-learning students and foreign exchance students
10. Other extracurricular activities: 1040 hours working as a sales associate at a hardware store, 100 hours working as an organic chemistry lab teaching assistant, 80 hours working as a tutor for students and student-athletes at Notre Dame, 50 hours working as captain of an intermural sports team
11. Rewards: 3x Dean’s List, hoping to get more!

• Medical College of Wisconsin
• University of Wisconsin
• Creighton University
• Saint Louis University
• Loyola Stritch School of Medicine
• Georgetown University
• Rosalind Franklin University
• Western Michigan University
• Wayne State University
• University of Illinois at Chicago
• Oakland University William Beaumont
• University of Cincinnati
• Drexel University
• Temple University
• Indiana University
• Ohio State University
• University of Michigan
• University of Minnesota
• Wake Forest University
• Thomas Jefferson University
• Tufts University
• University of Iowa
• Penn State University
• West Virginia University
• New York Medical Collge
• NYU Long Island School of Medicine
• Albert Einstein College of Medicine
• University of Vermont
• University of Louisville
• Kansas University
• University of North Dakota

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[Mr.Smile12]

Tell us when your PREview and Casper scores come through.

Obviously you have a green light with your metrics. Let's look at your EC's. You attend a Jesuit institution, so I would want to see what you have done with community service that reveals your service orientation competency.
* 42 hours working with Boys and Girls Club
* 40 hours volunteer tutoring for English-learning students and foreign exchange students

So tutoring falls into the tutoring/teaching bucket, which every prehealth applicant has, so these hours won't really help or count.

Clinical experience
* 40 hours Hospice Volunteer
* 16 hours volunteering with elderly patients at an inner-city hospital

Clinical experiences already have service orientation embedded, but we want to be sure you have service orientation that doesn't rely on working in health care or education. But I would like a better description of what you did in hospice or with the inner-city hospital.

Even if one could add these clinical experiences, you are still around 100 hours. You need to get to a minimum of 150 hours to avoid getting eliminated from consideration due to low service orientation experience at many schools. You may have other extenuating circumstances, but excuses fall on deaf ears at most admissions processes.

For the Jesuit programs, you definitely need more... maybe to stay in contention at least 250 hours at submission. Your research is below par, so I'm presuming you are guided by a more service-oriented purpose. You need a lot more in this bucket, especially non-clinical community service. Avoid any more tutoring or teaching unless you are hired into an under-resourced public school system as a teacher.

 

[Moonlight001]

Tbh I think you’re a solid applicant. I’m positive you’ll get at least one interview if not more. The biggest thing I learned when applying to med schools last year is that story matters! I had only 25 hours of an experience but I placed it as one of my most meaningful. I was asked why during an interview and I was able to show them how passionate I was about it. Quantity matters to a certain point. But the quality of the experience and the way you approach it during your essays and interviews matters the most. They want to see that you enjoyed what you did and not just for the sake of collecting hours.
I did not have the best mcat score but I was able to get into my top MD and DO schools along with other others and other interview invites. You don’t need to be the brightest student, but someone who’s truly passionate about what they do.
Also, don’t refrain from applying to DO programs!! Some are very great and even better than some MD ones. Please don’t listen to the stigma some love to talk about.
Best of luck and hope this helps you and someone else !

 

[tsirish20]

Tell us when your PREview and Casper scores come through.

Obviously you have a green light with your metrics. Let's look at your EC's. You attend a Jesuit institution, so I would want to see what you have done with community service that reveals your service orientation competency.
* 42 hours working with Boys and Girls Club
* 40 hours volunteer tutoring for English-learning students and foreign exchange students

So tutoring falls into the tutoring/teaching bucket, which every prehealth applicant has, so these hours won't really help or count.

Clinical experience
* 40 hours Hospice Volunteer
* 16 hours volunteering with elderly patients at an inner-city hospital

Clinical experiences already have service orientation embedded, but we want to be sure you have service orientation that doesn't rely on working in health care or education. But I would like a better description of what you did in hospice or with the inner-city hospital.

Even if one could add these clinical experiences, you are still around 100 hours. You need to get to a minimum of 150 hours to avoid getting eliminated from consideration due to low service orientation experience at many schools. You may have other extenuating circumstances, but excuses fall on deaf ears at most admissions processes.

For the Jesuit programs, you definitely need more... maybe to stay in contention at least 250 hours at submission. Your research is below par, so I'm presuming you are guided by a more service-oriented purpose. You need a lot more in this bucket, especially non-clinical community service. Avoid any more tutoring or teaching unless you are hired into an under-resourced public school system as a teacher.

I received a 5 on the PREview and 4th quartile (75th - 100th) on Casper. I don't really understand the disparity because I used the same logic on both tests. As a hospice volunteer, most of my time was spent in companionship/creating a legacy project for a patient detailing her life story with both a written documentation and oral recordings of her story. At the low-income hospital, I work through a program called the Hospital Elder Life Program. My job is to do 'volunteer rounding' where I visit each elder staying on a certain floor and spend time with them. I write reports for each visit detailing how the elder is faring in the hospital, whether they have social/familial support, etc. These reports are then given to hospital staff. The idea is that the patients sometimes feel more comfortable opening up to a volunteer than the hospital staff. Nearly all of the patients I work with in this hospital are from underserved populations. When I made this original post, I also made a typo. I should have 3040 hours working at the hardware store. I was expected to contribute to my family's income and have been working full-time when not in school since I was in high school. AAMC waived my fees as well. I am working this summer again at the ophthalmology practice and continuing both the hospice and hospital volunteering.