3.6 GPA, 35 MCAT -- help with school list?

[apr28]

Hey guys, I'll be applying in June and I'm hoping to get some advice on my final school list.

I'm a TX resident, URM (Hispanic) and will be applying with the following numbers: 3.6 cGPA, 3.5 sGPA, 35 MCAT (13 PS, 11 BS, 11 VR). I have an upwards GPA trend (3.75 cGPA this year). Lived outside of the US for about half my life, fluent in Spanish.

Research: One year of clinical research at a top institution, ended up being a co-author on 2 papers and a first-author on a poster presented at a national meeting.

ECs: I'd say average volunteering and shadowing, but virtually no leadership.

Letters: 2 excellent letters of recommendations, the rest I'd say will be about average.

I'm worried that my current list is too top-heavy, here's what I've thought of so far:

Stanford
Baylor
UCSF
UCLA
Duke
Emory
UT Southwestern
Mayo
Cleveland Clinic- Lerner
UT Houston
UT San Antonio
UTMB
Texas A&M
Texas Tech Lubbock
Texas Tech El Paso
Loma Linda
EVMS
Albany
Wake Forest
Virginia Tech- Carilion
Drexel
Temple
Rosalind Franklin
Medical College of Wisconsin


Thanks for all your help.

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[canjosh]

You should get into a TX school if you interview well and there are no red flags in the 'other stuff' on your app. When considering out of state schools, ask yourself this question: "If I get into a TX school, would I turn that acceptance down to attend this out-of-state school?" I'm of the opinion that for TX residents, there's basically no such thing as an out of state safety MD school. If you want to add safety, add DO schools. Good luck!

 

[apr28]

You should get into a TX school if you interview well and there are no red flags in the 'other stuff' on your app. When considering out of state schools, ask yourself this question: "If I get into a TX school, would I turn that acceptance down to attend this out-of-state school?" I'm of the opinion that for TX residents, there's basically no such thing as an out of state safety MD school. If you want to add safety, add DO schools. Good luck!

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, I wouldn't turn down a TX acceptance for a lower-tier OOS school, so it might be a good idea to apply to fewer of those to concentrate more on the other apps.

I'd only consider turning down a TX acceptance if I got into a top-tier school out of state.

Does it seem like my app is competitive enough for the top-tier private/OOS schools listed? Any I should add or remove?

 

[canjosh]

I think I would arbitrarily limit myself to 5 "top-tier" out of state schools. That being said, what really are the differences between some of those schools and the "lower-tier" ones? What is it about those schools that interests you, other than the name? Will a Stanford education be measurably "better" than a UTMB education? Probably not...

The item on your app that's difficult for me to gauge is your URM status. It certainly helps, but it's impossible to quantify exactly how much it does so.