MD 3.7 cGPA 3.65 sGPA 36 MCAT, School List?

[MD_Dream]

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[487806]

I am currently in the process of putting together a list of schools to apply to this cycle and would truly value the advice and opinions of others. I am a non-traditional student with a unique life story who took a year off to gain more research and clinical experience.

Stats:
3.7 cumulative GPA
3.65 BCPM GPA
36 MCAT (13PS, 11VR, 12BS)

The first two years of my undergraduate education were spent at a community college where I fulfilled my biology, chemistry, organic chemistry, and math (calculus I&II) requirements.

Freshman GPA - 4.0
Sophomore GPA - 3.61 (Was involved in a car accident a few days prior to final exams in Spring semester and foolishly took finals with a concussion and ended up earning B's in Organic Chemisty II and Calculus II).

I transferred to my state flagship university for my Junior and Senior years and completed advanced biology courses, my physics requirements, and biochemistry I & II.

Junior GPA - 3.5
Senior GPA - 3.77 (father had a heart attack the night before my last final which happened to be Biochemistry II final and I decided to just take the final and get it over with, ultimately did horrible and ended up with a C+ in biochemistry II, only C on transcript)

Extracurriculars:
Shadowed Primary Care Physician and Emergency Clinic Physician 1 year (~200 hrs with each physician, primarily underserved community)
Organized and assisted in food pantry 4 months (~50 hrs, short duration since pantry closed due to lack of funding/donations)
College student tutor 2 years (~300 hrs, tutored freshman biology)
Saturday school tutor 1.5 years (~300 hrs, tutored disadvantaged high school students)

The following were completed during my gap year:

Volunteer EMT-B 1 year (~900 hrs, mostly in an underserved area)
Research 1 year (full time research assistant at university, 1 publication)

I will be continuing my research, EMT volunteering, and Saturday school tutoring until I (hopefully) matriculate into medical school.

I previously mentioned I had a unique life story and am willing to provide the details if it would assist in weighing my chances at various medical schools but I have chosen to omit them to try and reduce the length of an already lengthy post =).

School List:

Reach Schools:
Harvard
Johns Hopkins
University of Pennsylvania (Perelman)
Columbia
Yale
Stanford

Match Schools:
Georgetown
George Washington
University of Virginia
Duke
Vanderbilt
Einstein
Tufts

“Safe” Schools
University of Maryland (Maryland Resident)
Albany
Temple
Rutgers (Robert Wood Johnson)
Virginia Commonwealth

I would like to know if my "reach" schools are really within reach as in are they even worth applying to or am I just throwing money away? Also is my list balanced enough between appropriate reach, match, and "safe" schools?

Please let me know if there is any other pertinent information that I may have excluded which could have an impact. I appreciate any and all comments and apologize for the long post =).

Good list. Nice stats and ECs. I'd swap Georgetown and George Washington (10K+ applications and you deserve better) with Northwestern and Case Western (maybe throw in NYU as well). Did you have any leadership experience?

 

[MD_Dream]

Thank you Agent B for your advice, I appreciate it and will look into Northwestern and Case Western. As far as leadership goes, I am in charge of my ambulance and train new volunteers. Additionally, I assist in training undergraduate students in the lab and for what its worth, I also coached football for 2 summers.

 

[487806]

Thank you Agent B for your advice, I appreciate it and will look into Northwestern and Case Western. As far as leadership goes, I am in charge of my ambulance and train new volunteers. Additionally, I assist in training undergraduate students in the lab and for what its worth, I also coached football for 2 summers.

Nice. So you're basically all set. Just work on your essays, apply early, do well on interviews and you're good to go. Good luck

 

[Goro]

How much experience did you have in your EMT-B work? According to the very sage LizzyM, an EMT-B is a glorified taxi driver. Have you set foot in a hospital or clinic to deal with patients, other than off-loading them from the ambulance? Your numbers are stellar, and, based upon them alone, your reach schools aren't reaches. Id also suggest Miami, any Chicago school, USC, all schools in PA, NYU, Rochester and Mt Sinai.

 

[MD_Dream]

Thank you for your advice Goro, I truly appreciate it. As an EMT-B I have handled a number of calls and would consider my experience to have been more significant than a taxi service. In the district I volunteer for EMT's are responsible for virtually all calls except those involving "traumas" (injuries to the head, shooting/stabbing to chest area and other things of that nature). In the event of being dispatched on a call that turned out to be a trauma, I am responsible for patient care until a paramedic arrives at which point I become the assistant and the paramedic assumes primary patient responsibility. In terms of volunteer work in a hospital I have not done any significant volunteering in a hospital. However, I have shadowed a physician working in an emergency clinic which functions basically like an emergency room in a hospital and during that shadowing experience the physician allowed me to assist in patient care and perform tasks which presumably are the same as what I would have experienced in a hospital ER setting.

 

[gyngyn]

Thank you for your advice Goro, I truly appreciate it. As an EMT-B I have handled a number of calls and would consider my experience to have been more significant than a taxi service. In the district I volunteer for EMT's are responsible for virtually all calls except those involving "traumas" (injuries to the head, shooting/stabbing to chest area and other things of that nature). In the event of being dispatched on a call that turned out to be a trauma, I am responsible for patient care until a paramedic arrives at which point I become the assistant and the paramedic assumes primary patient responsibility..

You will need to express these responsibilities clearly in your application since our impression of EMT-B is quite different!

 

[MD_Dream]

Thank you for your advice Gyngyn, I really appreciate it. Any other advice you may have with regards to my application (school list, elaboration on extracurriculars or whatever it may be) is welcomed and valued.

 

[gyngyn]

Thank you for your advice Gyngyn, I really appreciate it. Any other advice you may have with regards to my application (school list, elaboration on extracurriculars or whatever it may be) is welcomed and valued.

I agree with @Agent B regarding NW and Case (and the G swap). I agree with @Goro that a moderate expansion of your target schools is wise. An early application and and thoughtful, prompt secondaries and you should be fine. Don't forget mock interviews if your school offers them!

 

[Lamel]

You have really good stats; it really sucks that you had all those bad experiences right before finals, but you've still managed to put together a great application.

 

[MD_Dream]

Thank you for that additional feedback Gyngyn.

Lamel, while I certainly agree it did suck that I had some bad experiences right around finals time, I prefer not to worry about them or dwell on them because each and every one of us at some point encounter bad experiences. The only thing that matters in the end is what we make of the experiences we have and how we learn from what we have been through.

 

[MD_Dream]

Still searching for that last bit of advice before I "finalize" my school list. Any and all guidance is appreciated.

 

[LizzyM]

I generally don't weigh in on WAMC posts but I'll make an exception. I'd narrow down to 20 schools, maximum. Otherwise, the secondaries and interviews will wear you out and you'll feel obligated to attend all the interviews until you have an offer which could come in January... and even then you'll feel obligated to interview at those reach schools if they should come along with an interview offer after you are already holding an offer of admission.
As it is, the list is fine.
Aside from Stanford and Vandy, this an entirely East Coast list.... any good reason for that? What about Chicago area schools? St. Louis?
Are you familiar with G'town's philosophy of care and Catholic religious tradition? Are you okay with that? If that's a plus for you, you might consider adding another of the Jesuit schools: St. Louis University, Loyola University Chicago or Creighton. As a Maryland resident you'd bring "geographic diversity" with you as an applicant to a Midwest school.
Are you familiar with the Yale System and the required thesis? Are you okay with that? If not, you might swap another NY area school such as NYU or Cornell for Yale or even Dartmouth if you are okay with a more rural area.