WAMC: Asking for a friend (3.89 cGPA, 506 MCAT)

[pianoblack]

Hey everyone, I was helping a friend decide if he should apply this cycle or wait until next year, and I know he would really appreciate any advice from SDN!

1. 3.89 cGPA, 3.83 sGPA
2. MCAT: 506 (127/122/129/128)
3. Indiana resident
4. non-URM
5. Large public state school
6. For clinical experience, he was unsure whether his experiences would count as clinical. He worked in a toxicology lab where he was responsible for ordering lab tests on the computer, documenting patient meds, insurance info, demographics, etc. and basic lab tasks such as pipetting. The lab got samples from clinics across the US including urine/COVID/etc. He has 2000 hours so the classification would potentially make a big impact on the decision to apply this cycle or not. Similarly, he has 400 hours at a similar lab preparing COVID testing kits. Other than this, he only has 50 hours swabbing patients at a drive-thru COVID testing center and a scribing job that's currently just going to be projected hours, as he's still in training.
7. ~150 research hours in a basic science biology lab without publications/presentations/posters.
8. 30 hours shadowing between two IM physicians.
9. ~100-ish hours of non-clinical volunteering (volunteering at a food bank, blood drive, mentoring program, and adopt-a-family program in the community).
10. He has leadership positions in 2 orgs, a service-oriented premed org for 2 years and biology club for 2 years. He was also a gen chem TA for 2 semesters and has 500 hours of non-medical related work experience over last summer.
11. No outstanding awards except dean's list every semester and a couple other academic awards at our school.
12. He has 4 LORs (2 science, 1 humanities, 1 personal). No IAs or criminal record.

I've been trying to help him come up with a school list, and definitely advised applying broadly to DO schools along with our state MD school. The biggest question we wanted to hear about from the experts on SDN is whether it would be wise for him to just hold off on applying until next cycle so he can retake the MCAT and potentially improve his CARS, as well as getting in more research, volunteering, and clinical hours from the scribing job he's lined up currently. I told him that his GPA is strong and I honestly think he would already be pretty competitive for DO this cycle without having to wait until next cycle, but I was concerned about the low CARS subsection score and lack of significant volunteering hours. If anyone can provide advice in this situation, we would be super grateful!

Tentative School List (he is in the process of adding more):

MD:
Indiana (in-state)
Tulane
Wayne State
Quillen/East Tennessee State*
Central Michigan*
Kentucky*
University of Toledo*
University of Louisville*

*Schools I advised may be difficult due to public OOS bias and will probably be removed

DO:
LECOM
ROWAN
UNECOM
PCOM
TCOM
OU-HCOM
NYITCOM
MSUCOM

I'm not personally too familiar with details about specific DO schools, but it's worth noting that he currently does not have a physician LOR, so we took off any schools that require one for now as well as any of the schools that Goro has stated he cannot recommend for various reasons from an older thread I found.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can chime in!

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[Faha]

Your friend's work in the lab is not clinical experience since it involves no patient contact. Your friend has only 30 hours of physician shadowing and no clinical volunteering/employment with sick, injured or dying patients. I suggest accumulating another 20 hours of physician shadowing and 200+ hours of clinical volunteering/employment with patient contact. The scribing job should exceed that number of hours. Your friend does not need to retake the MCAT for any DO schools. A CARS of 122 is low for most MD schools so a retake of the MCAT with a higher CARS and overall score would increase their chances for MD interviews.

 

[chilly_md]

I told him that his GPA is strong and I honestly think he would already be pretty competitive for DO this cycle without having to wait until next cycle, but I was concerned about the low CARS subsection score and lack of significant volunteering hours.

DO:
LECOM
ROWAN
UNECOM
PCOM
TCOM
OU-HCOM
NYITCOM
MSUCOM

I'm not personally too familiar with details about specific DO schools, but it's worth noting that he currently does not have a physician LOR, so we took off any schools that require one for now as well as any of the schools that Goro has stated he cannot recommend for various reasons from an older thread I found.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can chime in!

As Faha said, your friend does not have enough clinical hours or shadowing to apply this cycle. This would also be a significant impact on his DO chances. The limited list that does not require a physician LOR contains many schools with an in-state preference (Rowan, UNECOM, TCOM, Ohio Heritage, MSUCOM). For instance, TCOM is a TMDAS school and only leaves about 10% of its spots for OOS students.

 

[pianoblack]

Ok, thanks to both of you for the advice! Seeing as the lab experience would not count as clinical, I can definitely see what you mean about the lack of clinical and shadowing hours. I'll share the valuable feedback.