Hi everyone! I was wondering if I could get opinions on my app and school list. I’m applying this cycle and was completed for most of these places by mid to late August. I know my volunteering is low, but I plan on fixing that in the future if I have to reapply. Thanks everybody!
cGPA: 3.97;
sGPA: 3.94 (psychology & biology double major)
MCAT: 517 (129, 130, 128, 130)
State: MO, no ties anywhere else
Ethnicity: ORM, white male
School: Medium size public school in Missouri
Clinical experience/volunteering:
- 155 hours hospice volunteer
- 61 hours at internship in a drug rehab clinic (through a program at my school, cut short by Covid-19, not much on paper but it ties in well to my narrative of “why medicine” because I was raised by a single mom who suffered from alcoholism and depression)
Research:
- About 900 hours in a herpetology/histology lab (3rd author pub w/ 1-2 more on the way as 2nd or 3rd author)
- About 250 hours in psychology lab (1 poster presentation at regional conference, didn’t get to actually present due to Covid-19, and I am currently writing a manuscript on similar but unrelated research)
Shadowing:
- 51 hours (mostly primary care but also some in urology and neurosurgery)
Non-clinical volunteering:
- - I created a volunteering position at a social services agency to work with the homeless for about 80 hours last fall. I took time off last spring to do the drug rehab internship and haven’t been back due to Covid-19 but plan on going back in this winter through the summer.
Other stuff:
- I tried one time to organize a research database for my school. I formed a team and entered the idea into an innovation challenge at my school. It got third place which kinda killed the momentum and the project. I spent about 100 hours on it, so not that big a deal other than I learned a lot about leadership.
- I started a sole proprietor LLC last year to tutor students. Covid-19 made it a little difficult to find paying students, so I turned my LLC into a landscaping business. I’ve put in a couple hundred hours in terms of starting the business and actually working in it.
Honors:
- Phi Kappa Phi
- Psi Chi (psych honor society)
- Participated in an exclusive class put on by the president of my university to teach leadership
- I participated in a program at my school to spend a semester studying global issues before spending a week at a think tank in DC as a part of a leadership seminar. At the end of the semester we had group presentations for our topics at my school’s research conference.
Rural Medicine: Yes very much, emphasized in secondaries
Specialty Interest: Mostly interested in psychiatry, but primary care is my second choice
Letters: Committee letter from my school, a separate letter from professor who runs the histology lab, and a letter from hospice volunteer coordinator (these are all strong)
School list
- Mizzou (II)
- SLU
- Iowa
- Cincinnati
- Morsani
- GW (Hold)
- UVA
- Ohio State
- Dartmouth
- Western Michigan
- Pitt
- Brown
- Einstein
- Arizona Phoenix
- Emory
- Vanderbilt
- Mayo
- Case
- Duke
- Columbia
@Goro @Faha
