Hello, I'm a sophomore at a state school in Oregon. Below are my stats/activities, planning to apply in the summer between junior and senior year. I'm looking for some constructive feedback to improve my application.
- cGPA: 3.95
- No MCAT yet
- Oregon,
- Asian Male, SES disadvantaged
- State School
- I volunteer as a CNA and medical scribe at a free clinic, currently at ~500 hours, expecting to get around 250 per year until I apply
- I have been doing cognitive psychology/neuroscience research in a lab with a grad student for 1.5 years now (600 hours), I have a very strong letter (she showed me what she and my PI wrote for a scholarship application last year), good relationship, and sent in an application to a conference for an abstract
- I am also doing wet lab work with a postdoc at a biology cancer lab, I help with c/qPCR, Mini/MaxiPrep, Western blots, gels, Bradford assays. Unlikely to get pubbed by the time I apply, but it's possible I get on a poster, but not sure. ~1000 hours
- This experience isn't really research, but I'm part of a biology club and we got a paper submitted as a manuscript describing how our club works to a 0.9-1 impact factor journal; it was accepted with me as 4th author
- This also isn't really research, but I ran a college mentorship program for underserved populations and did a survey on the mentees; got a first-author abstract accepted to a conference
- I'll probably list the mentorship program on my application
- Shadowed a physician in a club that does rural shadowing ~40 hours
- Volunteer as Program Coordinator for a non-profit that does preventative health sessions ~200 hours, I teach virtual physics classes to kids to raise money for a charity as part of a nonprofit, I volunteer in another nonprofit to raise funds for blind kids in India, I volunteer at a low-income clinic
- I am the Lead Editor for an undergrad microbiology research journal, Vice President of a honor society here
- I won a departmental biology scholarship and a research scholarship, nothing too big