What do you personally consider a "reach school"???

A reach schools IMHO is when you are 3 or more LizzyM points below the school's LizzyM score.

If you're not familiar with the LizzyM score, it equals: cGPA x 10 + MCAT

Obviously schools can become reaches if they have a clear mission of working with underserved populations or something and you have zero experience in that area, but in general, it's based on the LizzyM score.

You have good stats so I'd agree that the MCAT will be very important. Anything that has a matriculant MCAT average several points higher than yours would be a reach likely. If you have a high MCAT also, you may just get caught in the trap of trying to go to nothing but competitive schools which could screw you in the end because everyone will have good stats so they could all be considered reaches just because of how competitive they are and your scores won't stand out.

The thing about apps these days (and this is just my opinion having gone through the app process). ALL schools are reach and there are no safeties.

Any US MD school for me

All of them

supafly0 said:

The thing about apps these days (and this is just my opinion having gone through the app process). ALL schools are reach and there are no safeties.

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AdmAckbar said:

Any US MD school for me

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Arbor Vitae said:

All of them

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There are no guarantees

Pretty much all of them. There are no guarantees.

After going through the process, any top 10 school is a reach, no matter what your stats are.

Any top 20 school.

My app is going to be very research heavy (non-trad taking a couple years for full time public health/clinical research), because I'm very interested in that being part of my career, but my GPA isn't great (3.6 including the college classes I took in high school). This sets up the somewhat awkward situation of having the ECs that tops schools are looking for, but the grades for a lower tier. I'm going to have to kill the MCAT to make myself competitive for those top schools, because I really want to attend a research oriented institution.

Any school where the chances of you getting in is less than 50%. Rate your application accordingly.

All schools in top 20.

All schools that place emphasis on having stellar ECs.

Any school who has a median that's close to .1 greater than my GPA and has a median MCAT that's at least 1 point above mine or maybe even equal to it.

All MD schools

dkpremed said:

Would you consider a school to be a "reach school" if you fell into the 10th percentile on MSAR or something more/less extreme?

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The answer to this question is yes. This would be a reach school.

As most others have stated, med school admissions in general is pretty arbitrary regardless of your stats/background, which makes every med school "a reach" for everyone. But going by LizzyM score is a good way to quantify your chances a bit.

I will say this though: If you love the school, apply anyway and fit your application to their mission. If you have the time and money and don't mind filling out tons of secondaries, I would also say apply anyway. If your stats are well below their 50% percentile and you're already feeling swamped from the ton of schools you already have on your list (20+), then I would say dont waste your time.