* deleted for privacy, thank you :)

[SleepieSheep]

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[Mr.Smile12]

My application emphasizes education and mentorship as one of the themes.

I'll be honest: this theme is cliche. Most premeds tutor or teach, and we push mentoring throughout academia. You should be a teacher or go to education, including a year or so in TFA/City Year to impress your point (as many others have). We need passionate and resilient teachers more than we need doctors, one can argue.

Every school is proud of its curriculum. Every school thinks its mentoring system is outstanding. There is nothing that compels me to want to interview you if you put this up as a theme.

170 hrs non-med volunteering (food bank and elementary school science fair mentor)

Please split the hours. Science fair mentor shows academic competency.

This means your file lacks service orientation. You may have done a lot of work with underserved students, but not in a way that brings you out of your comfort zone or that otherwise has nothing to do with your strengths as a student. Your file risks getting screened out until those hours show your true fit or purpose for medicine.

Do your want rural medicine? Do you want research? Do you want to advocate for patients? The activities outside of the academic-adjacent ones don't point to a vision to me. Am I missing something?

 

[SleepieSheep]

I'll be honest: this theme is cliche. Most premeds tutor or teach, and we push mentoring throughout academia. You should be a teacher or go to education, including a year or so in TFA/City Year to impress your point (as many others have). We need passionate and resilient teachers more than we need doctors, one can argue.

Every school is proud of its curriculum. Every school thinks its mentoring system is outstanding. There is nothing that compels me to want to interview you if you put this up as a theme.


Please split the hours. Science fair mentor shows academic competency.

This means your file lacks service orientation. You may have done a lot of work with underserved students, but not in a way that brings you out of your comfort zone or that otherwise has nothing to do with your strengths as a student. Your file risks getting screened out until those hours show your true fit or purpose for medicine.

Do your want rural medicine? Do you want research? Do you want to advocate for patients? The activities outside of the academic-adjacent ones don't point to a vision to me. Am I missing something?

*deleted for privacy

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Some guidance will come from recent articles just posted on SDN that begins with

Charting Your Purpose by Writing Your Professional Oath - SDN

The Student Doctor Network provides free tools, resources, and advising services to help students become health professionals.

www.studentdoctor.net

As I write in this article, some of my more successful advisees and applicants have some version of their own oath that they use as a touchstone for their entire application and raison d'etre as a future physician.

I get the aspect of "patient education" but I suggest showcasing your preprofessional competencies more. Teaching does not always come with a sense of cultural humility, which is necessary for working with marginalized populations.

How to Assess Your Pre-Professional Competencies - SDN

The Student Doctor Network provides free tools, resources, and advising services to help students become health professionals.

www.studentdoctor.net

You likely have heard doctors say how much they learn from patients. Take this tact to show your commitment to learning/growth. You are applying to be a student who must be receptive to learning from observations and sharing them in a way that sparks inspiration and curiosity. You want to show you are willing to be taught on things that may make you absolutely uncomfortable to establish a trustworthy relationship with your patients.

Teaching involves you conveying information from a position of expertise, often with a result of changed behavior or some marker of progress. In the end, the goal for teaching and tutoring is for us to comprehend information. Many patients don't want to be lectured or "judged" in this way. They want to be heard. They don't necessarily need to understand the mechanism of action behind certain drugs, but they often want to know why life has given them their circumstances. I hope this subtle difference is clear.

 

[chilly_md]

I suggest:

UW
WSU
Colorado
Keck
Kaiser
Icahn
Einstein
Hofstra
Rochester
Dartmouth
Jefferson
Temple
Hackensack
VCU
EVMS
UVA
Boston
Tufts
UMass
Vermont
Western Michigan
MCW
Saint Louis
Creighton
Rosalind Franklin
Iowa
Emory
Miami

 

[SleepieSheep]

I suggest:

UW
WSU
Colorado
Keck
Kaiser
Icahn
Einstein
Hofstra
Rochester
Dartmouth
Jefferson
Temple
Hackensack
VCU
EVMS
UVA
Boston
Tufts
UMass
Vermont
Western Michigan
MCW
Saint Louis
Creighton
Rosalind Franklin
Iowa
Emory
Miami

This is great, thank you so much! Can I ask why you did not include some schools that I've seen as common options for OOS applicants like Drexel, Albany, and George Washington?

 

[chilly_md]

This is great, thank you so much! Can I ask why you did not include some schools that I've seen as common options for OOS applicants like Drexel, Albany, and George Washington?

You can add a couple of those if you are interested. Quinnipiac would be worth it since they get fewer apps vs those 3 which receive 10k+ typically. You are in a position where you shouldn't have to spend the extra fees trying to grab an interview.