MD .

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People who want to aim as high as their stats need to have ECs to match them. Most successful candidates at the Top Schools have hundreds if not even thousands of hours of service and/or clinical experience.

Stanford, being research ******, will love you, but I don't know about other schools. My own student interviewers would eat you alive with < 100 clinical hours.

IF you can get in another 80-100 hours and apply in August, then I think you might have a decent chance, especially if you continues those ECs through the app cycle
 
Well, I do hope that you listed research, tutoring and sports on the application to account for your time in college. It is too bad that you had so little interest in helping others while in college that you didn't feel the need to search out a group in need of services.
 
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nangka said:
Hi @LizzyM I appreciate your time. I've said I regret not starting volunteering earlier, and that I'm currently volunteering at two different places while working two jobs. I'm a little taken aback by your tone but thanks for the insight.
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Sorry you don't like my tone but the truth is that while you had an interest in medicine for whatever reason, your motivation to help others did not impel you to find a volunteer outlet while in school. That is a fact. You have come around to it now but some schools may see it as too little too late compared with students who began such activities in while still underclassmen.
 
nangka said:
Hey all — applying a few years out from undergrad. Currently doing a 2 year research fellowship at NIH, before that I did a 1 year fulbright teaching grant. I have good stats but I know those are only part of the picture.

GPA: 4.0
MCAT: 526
Clinical Volunteering: 85 over the course of 16 months, ongoing. (weekly, 1.5 hrs/week)
Shadowing: 70 hours, all but 10 came from college :\ Not sure how to weigh that.
Nonclinical volunteering: 160-200 over the course of 2 yrs, ongoing. (weekly, 2 hrs/week)
Research: In total, about 6-7k laboratory hours by June 2019.
Publications: 1 mid author, 1 book chapter coauthor, some more are possible but unlikely before apps are in.
Regional ties: none..switched my residency to DC (lol) which confers very few advantages with school selection.
Letters of rec: no committee letter, but I am getting about 7 from profs/bosses that (I hope) will be pretty kind and fairly intimate (in a wholesome way). Still, feel dumb about the committee thing.
Awards: valedictorian and the fulbright (but the % accepted is actually wildly high haha — sort of a misplaced prestige in that respect)

Couple questions:
(1) how much to worry about my clinical/shadowing hours (and the lack of committee letter), and
(2) how many midtiers to look at?

My school list is below ranked roughly by interest — obviously I shouldn’t apply to 30 schools for financial reasons + sanity. I am including so many top-tiers (almost all T20s) not because I like them all equally, but because it sounds like stats notwithstanding they’re all extremely tough to get into, so it’s wiser to apply broadly. I also anticipate I might experience yield selection at lower schools but I’m not sure how common that is. Any advice appreciated!


TOUGH
  1. U of Chicago Pritzker
  2. Northwestern
  3. UCLA
  4. Vanderbilt
  5. Harvard
  6. Stanford
  7. Yale
  8. Perelman (UPenn)
  9. Cornell-Weill
  10. NYU
  11. Columbia
  12. Mount Sinai (having trouble differentiating the NYC schools)
  13. UCSF
  14. Hopkins
  15. WashU
  16. Mayo Clinic?
  17. Michigan?
  18. Baylor?
  19. Pitt?
  20. Duke?


STILL TOUGH BUT SLIGHTLY LESS SO (I think?)

  1. Einstein
  2. Keck
  3. BU
  4. UVa
  5. Geisel
  6. Emory
  7. Tufts
  8. Rochester
  9. UCSD
  10. U Miami?
  11. Ohio State?
  12. Vermont?
  13. Pitt?
  14. Hofstra?
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I am nowhere near as experienced as your previous posters, but I can say that I was unable to do much community service in undergrad because I was working for pay - I think as along as you can show that you were filling your time with something, and not just playing video games between study sessions, you should be good.

I did a lot of research too - one mid-author pub, one first-author abstract turning into pub - and got a good number of top 20 interviews and acceptances. I will note though that the mid-tiers didn't even sneeze my way.
 
Students admitted to top schools have distinguished themselves in academics as well as service and research.
Some are heavier in research and others in service, but when all three are evident, there is a better chance of a strong showing.
 
Hence OP, take a gap year and build up your service bonafides. Key thing: service to others less fortunate than yourself. Show off your altruism, because Medicine is a service profession.
 
Goro said:
Hence OP, take a gap year and build up your service bonafides. Key thing: service to others less fortunate than yourself. Show off your altruism, because Medicine is a service profession.
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Peace Corps or Teach for America would make him a very strong candidate - he'd have killer service ECs to go with his superb stats. A few hundred hours' worth of volunteering at a hospice should suffice though.
 
Walter Raleigh said:
Peace Corps or Teach for America would make him a very strong candidate - he'd have killer service ECs to go with his superb stats. A few hundred hours' worth of volunteering at a hospice should suffice though.
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@Walter Raleigh I see you on these WAMC all the time and it made me curious. Are you an adcom?
 
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