2 Applicant Profiles - Which is stronger?

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Hey everyone, I just have a scenario in my head.

Imagine the following 2 students applying to medical school, both of whom are white males and biology majors.

Applicant A:

3.932 GPA
37 MCAT
A few, one-time physician shadows
1 year of non-medical research (required for his degree)
No leadership experience, but a member of a few ECs
2 week service-based study abroad trip in Africa
Proficient in Spanish (has a Spanish minor)
Chemistry minor
Small group peer leader for introductory chemistry
From the suburbs (excellent college prep high school)

Applicant B:

3.712 GPA
30 MCAT
Physician shadowing (both MD and DO) and shadowing in medically-related careers (psychology, public health)
3 years of non-medical and medical research (in an internship and for his degree)
President (and other offices) of multiple organizations, and plenty of community service hours
6 week intensive language study abroad trip in Spain
Proficient in Spanish
Sociology minor
From a rural town (lacking college prep status at his high school)

What is your take on these applicants?
 
westcoast904 said:
Hey everyone, I just have a scenario in my head.

Imagine the following 2 students applying to medical school, both of whom are white males and biology majors.

Applicant A:

3.932 GPA
37 MCAT
A few, one-time physician shadows
1 year of non-medical research (required for his degree)
No leadership experience, but a member of a few ECs
2 week service-based study abroad trip in Africa
Proficient in Spanish (has a Spanish minor)
Chemistry minor
Small group peer leader for introductory chemistry
From the suburbs (excellent college prep high school)

Applicant B:

3.712 GPA
30 MCAT
Physician shadowing (both MD and DO) and shadowing in medically-related careers (psychology, public health)
3 years of non-medical and medical research (in an internship and for his degree)
President (and other offices) of multiple organizations, and plenty of community service hours
6 week intensive language study abroad trip in Spain
Proficient in Spanish
Sociology minor
From a rural town (lacking college prep status at his high school)

What is your take on these applicants?
Click to expand...

App A without a doubt. MCAT difference is huge and while applicant B has better ECs, they aren't spectacular and applicant A's are still adequate.

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MedPR said:
App A without a doubt. MCAT difference is huge and while applicant B has better ECs, they aren't spectacular and applicant A's are still adequate.

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Click to expand...

Agreed. Scores put A in the stratosphere tier of med school. B is average at best, maybe lower middle tier.

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westcoast904 said:
Hey everyone, I just have a scenario in my head.

Imagine the following 2 students applying to medical school, both of whom are white males and biology majors.

Applicant A:

3.932 GPA
37 MCAT
A few, one-time physician shadows
1 year of non-medical research (required for his degree)
No leadership experience, but a member of a few ECs
2 week service-based study abroad trip in Africa
Proficient in Spanish (has a Spanish minor)
Chemistry minor
Small group peer leader for introductory chemistry
From the suburbs (excellent college prep high school)

Applicant B:

3.712 GPA
30 MCAT
Physician shadowing (both MD and DO) and shadowing in medically-related careers (psychology, public health)
3 years of non-medical and medical research (in an internship and for his degree)
President (and other offices) of multiple organizations, and plenty of community service hours
6 week intensive language study abroad trip in Spain
Proficient in Spanish
Sociology minor
From a rural town (lacking college prep status at his high school)

What is your take on these applicants?
Click to expand...

Both applicants are good, but I would stick with Applicant A, but barely. I heard before that MCAT/GPA comes first, and extracurriculars come after. It's important to be good in both, though.
 
Take it for what its worth, especially since its a DO school but the admissions people told me that the MCAT is not a good indicator of a good med school student and not a good indicator of how they will do on the USMLE, so while it is important they prefer a more rounded person. I would think they would choose person B.

I would imagine the top MD schools would choose person a tho.
 
Applicant A:

3.932 GPA 10/10
37 MCAT 10/10
A few, one-time physician shadows 3/10
1 year of non-medical research (required for his degree) 2/10
No leadership experience, but a member of a few ECs 1/10
2 week service-based study abroad trip in Africa 3-7/10 - depends on what exactly they did, how involved they were and what they got from it
Proficient in Spanish (has a Spanish minor) 7/10
Chemistry minor 2/10
Small group peer leader for introductory chemistry 3-10/10 - again, depends on what exactly they did with this, what they got from it and what they produced
From the suburbs (excellent college prep high school) 0/10 - irrelavent

Applicant B:

3.712 GPA 8/10
30 MCAT 6/10
Physician shadowing (both MD and DO) 4-10/10 depends on what they got out of it and shadowing in medically-related careers (psychology, public health) 0-4/10 hard to wow medical schools with this
3 years of non-medical and medical research (in an internship and for his degree) 0-10/10 Probably the biggest variable. 0 would be, it is required, they fulfilled their requirements, but otherwise wasted 3 years of time. 10 would be, couple of publications, presentations etc. a good story about what they learned and how they can apply it
President (and other offices) of multiple organizations, and plenty of community service hours 1-10/10 - I am always skeptical when people are president of multiple organizations. With out fail, every single person who was in my experience was doing it for the title/credit and not doing anything productive. My experience is probably n=5. If they can't show anything for these other than title then 1/10, if they actually did something productive with each of those (2-3 or whatever) then somewhere higher.
6 week intensive language study abroad trip in Spain 2/10
Proficient in Spanish 7/10
Sociology minor 2/10
From a rural town (lacking college prep status at his high school) 0/10 - irrelavent

Impression of various parts of their applications. Comparing these head to head is a little silly and again, a couple of variables in play still.
 
37 vs 30 MCAT? applicant A for sure! that is a huge difference in scores. the GPA difference (I think) is minimal 3.7 vs 3.9, but a 30 vs 37 MCAT is big
 
I would choose B, but I'm bias-I think. both applicants are great, but in the end it would come down to how well they fit the mission of the school.
 
lobo12 said:
i would choose b, but i'm bias-i think. Both applicants are great, but in the end it would come down to how well they fit the mission of the school.
Click to expand...

b.
 
I'd see who could curl 40 pounds longer and then tell the loser to take a multi and gtfo
 
Not even a comparison.

Now if we were analyzing a 3.3/37 and a 3.7/30 we'd have something interesting to talk about.
 
App A

[nevermind]B es fluido en español, y es el ganador.

Español >>>>>>> 37, unless they're applying to Harvard.

This is biased, but in the long run I believe that Spanish will be more useful than a 37 mcat while on the job.[/nevermind]
 
Last edited:
ShenanigansMD said:
B es fluido en español, y es el ganador.

Español >>>>>>> 37, unless they're applying to Harvard.

This is biased, but in the long run I believe that Spanish will be more useful than a 37 mcat while on the job.
Click to expand...

Both applicants are Spanish speaking.

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both would probably get into med school. A is the stronger applicant, to the chagrin of well-rounded applicants with mediocre stats everywhere.
btw, what are those dudes thinking majoring in something so banal like bio 😉.
 
Probably would've been better if the difference in MCAT score wasn't so great. Has to be app A.
 
MedPR said:
Caught me before the edit. I didn't mean to sound like a dick.

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Click to expand...

Lol that was my first thought. "Why's he being such a dick!" Then I realized it's an online forum, who cares.
 
It would come down to their interview for me. Neither has extensive hands-on clinical experience, which is just as important as anything else in my opinion.
 
MDforMee said:
The first non-train reference in one of your posts that I've seen.

You fail.
Click to expand...

Nlvdz.png
 
the mildly better EC's do not at all make up for the vast difference in the GPA/MCAT between the two applicants. Even if Applicant B was an non-trad, with an established career, tons of publications, and abroad experiences, they'd still need at least a 33 to be considered over Applicant A.
 
Sorry guys. I've been feeling down lately since hearing the news about the amtrak train slamming into a big rig. So I apologize if I forgot my train references.
 
cheechootrain said:
Sorry guys. I've been feeling down lately since hearing the news about the amtrak train slamming into a big rig. So I apologize if I forgot my train references.
Click to expand...

I read about that too. It's the rigs fault.

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I could see some schools choosing to interview both. At that point, A could shine or tank and ditto for B. It could end up being B ahead of A.

Another factor could be the school's emphasis. If the school wants geographic diversity it might be attracted to B and the same goes if the school puts a big emphasis on research and B has great a LOR from the PI.

It could be said that A has good grades but not much else. It could be said for some schools that B's academic record is below avg but at other schools it could be at or above average, particularly if B has the good fortune to e from a state that gives a lot of weight to in-state applicants, particularly rural applicants who might be interested in primary care in a community similar to their childhood home.
 
Several years ago, an Asian American website listed two real cases: A Princeton applicant of ethnic Chinese with 3.93 GPA and 41 MCAT was rejected by every top 10 schools for MSTP except UCSF. She was wait-listed by UCSF (and was later taken off the waitlist), while a Stanford applicant of Hispanic origin with 3.7 GPA and 31 MCAT (with a verbal 7) got into all MSTP programs he applied to. Both had done substantial research in the labs, but both had no publication at the time of application. I don't know whether ethnicity had played role here. But the website lists this as one of the cases of discrimination against asian students.
 
Underarchiever said:
Several years ago, an Asian American website listed two real cases: A Princeton applicant of ethnic Chinese with 3.93 GPA and 41 MCAT was rejected by every top 10 schools for MSTP except UCSF. She was wait-listed by UCSF (and was later taken off the waitlist), while a Stanford applicant of Hispanic origin with 3.7 GPA and 31 MCAT (with a verbal 7) got into all MSTP programs he applied to. Both had done substantial research in the labs, but both had no publication at the time of application. I don't know whether ethnicity had played role here. But the website lists this as one of the cases of discrimination against asian students.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I'm guessing charisma had a lot more to do with this outcome than racial prejudice, especially considering how few top 10 MSTP spots there are.
 
Venom5 said:
I'd see who could curl 40 pounds longer and then tell the loser to take a multi and gtfo
Click to expand...
I hope my application goes through you some day.
 
Underarchiever said:
Several years ago, an Asian American website listed two real cases: A Princeton applicant of ethnic Chinese with 3.93 GPA and 41 MCAT was rejected by every top 10 schools for MSTP except UCSF. She was wait-listed by UCSF (and was later taken off the waitlist), while a Stanford applicant of Hispanic origin with 3.7 GPA and 31 MCAT (with a verbal 7) got into all MSTP programs he applied to. Both had done substantial research in the labs, but both had no publication at the time of application. I don't know whether ethnicity had played role here. But the website lists this as one of the cases of discrimination against asian students.
Click to expand...

That's not discrimination. They werent competing for the exact same spot. All the school would have to say is they want diversity and have ethnic quotas.

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MedPR said:
That's not discrimination. They werent competing for the exact same spot. All the school would have to say is they want diversity and have ethnic quotas.

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Click to expand...

Also could be a case of extreme cherry picking. That said, the data from AMCAS explicitly show that it asian americans need higher scores on average to be admitted into medical school as compared to those of hispanic descent. Depending on how you define it, there is certainly some level of 'discrimination' in the admissions process. I'd imagine it is usually not this extreme and that race was only a minor part of what happened to the Princeton grad.
 
Underarchiever said:
Several years ago, an Asian American website listed two real cases: A Princeton applicant of ethnic Chinese with 3.93 GPA and 41 MCAT was rejected by every top 10 schools for MSTP except UCSF. She was wait-listed by UCSF (and was later taken off the waitlist), while a Stanford applicant of Hispanic origin with 3.7 GPA and 31 MCAT (with a verbal 7) got into all MSTP programs he applied to. Both had done substantial research in the labs, but both had no publication at the time of application. I don't know whether ethnicity had played role here. But the website lists this as one of the cases of discrimination against asian students.
Click to expand...

It would be highly unlikely for these two to be the only two candidates at 10 MSTP schools. If each school has 3 slots and the appliants are 50 whites, 100 asians. 10 black and 20 hispanics, who will they choose? There are 30 slots and 180 applicants.
 
If you comparing statistics of Black, Hispanic and Asian matriculants, you may easily conclude that discrimination against Asian students reaches pandemic level, at least in the higher education admission.

Here is some of the comments on why Supreme court chooses to look into race-based admission again in less than 10 years: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...b28-11e2-bb5e-492c0d30bff6_story.html?hpid=z3
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the input so far! Now let's keep everything the same, but narrow the gap on the GPA/MCAT:

Applicant A:

3.901 GPA
35 MCAT

Applicant B:

3.798 GPA
31 MCAT

This is my narrowing the gap. What now? What would Applicant B have to do to be roughly equal to Applicant A? Likewise for A, how far down would A have to slip before he's roughly equal to B?
 
westcoast904 said:
Thanks for the input so far! Now let's keep everything the same, but narrow the gap on the GPA/MCAT:

Applicant A:

3.901 GPA
35 MCAT

Applicant B:

3.798 GPA
31 MCAT

This is my narrowing the gap. What now? What would Applicant B have to do to be roughly equal to Applicant A? Likewise for A, how far down would A have to slip before he's roughly equal to B?
Click to expand...
Are you doing some crazy ass statistics assignment or what?
 
alisvolatpropri said:
Is it discrimination against Asians only or Asians/white? Race based admission is means to close the increasing disparity of race/diversity in higher education. Until this:
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/abo...tatistics/total-physicians-raceethnicity.page
equals
http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-02.pdf

affirmative action should stand ground and be supported.
Click to expand...

Affirmative action is a thing of the past.

Using skin color as a basis for discrimination is old school.

These days, they'll shift to Financially Undeserved, if anything.

Except in the case of Asians. Sorry, guys.

Looks like med schools are already on board and shunting asians away, no matter what the de facto de jure policies are.
 
Underarchiever said:
If you comparing statistics of Black, Hispanic and Asian matriculants, you may easily conclude that discrimination against Asian students reaches pandemic level, at least in the higher education admission.

Here is some of the comments on why Supreme court chooses to look into race-based admission again in less than 10 years: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...b28-11e2-bb5e-492c0d30bff6_story.html?hpid=z3
Click to expand...

Not true. You have to consider more than just gpa and mcat.

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Black folks would prefer to be seen by a black doctor. Hispanics would prefer to be treated by a Hispanic, spanish speaking physician. Because healthcare is a very personal field, I see nothing wrong with cherry picking a med school class to fit the changing demographic of the country.
 
What is the point of a thread like this? It's like comparing fantasy football stats or something, only much more pathetic.
 
Testosterone said:
Black folks would prefer to be seen by a black doctor. Hispanics would prefer to be treated by a Hispanic, spanish speaking physician. Because healthcare is a very personal field, I see nothing wrong with cherry picking a med school class to fit the changing demographic of the country.
Click to expand...

Makes sense for patients to see doctors who can speak their language, but come on. Regardless of the race, i'm sure a patient would care more about being treated than by the doctor's ethnicity.
 
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