MD 3.9+, 521, mediocre ECs

[ladymiresa]

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1. cGPA and sGPA as calculated by AMCAS: 3.96 cGPA, sGPA slightly lower idk
2. MCAT score(s) and breakdown: 521 (127/132/130/132)
3. State of residence or country of citizenship (if non-US): Missouri
4. Ethnicity and/or race: white female
5. Undergraduate institution or category: small liberal arts. At time of matriculation, I'll have had 2 gap years.
6. Clinical experience (volunteer and non-volunteer): ~1500 paid clinical experience, ~50 hospice, all within the past 6 months
   EDIT: since the creation of this post, I've began volunteering as a sexual assault response team member in the ED and except to have about ~100hrs at time of application
7. Research experience and productivity: Did two summer research programs and 1 for-credit research class, totaling about 1000 hours. Presented posters at local conferences each time. They were meaningful learning experience but not very productive, nothing long term, and each experience was a totally different topic from the others.
8. Shadowing experience and specialties represented: About ~50 hours in OBGYN, Neurology, Pediactric cardiology... working on primary care.
9. Non-clinical volunteering: About 300hr (acrosss 1 year) as a victim advocate, helping connect people to counseling and financial assistance. Some basic sorority philanthropy stuff throughout college.
10. Other extracurricular activities: Lots of leadership throughout college, I definitely feel this is a strength of mine. I was very involved in campus programming and organizational development Several thousand hours accumulated. Also did one semester of biology TA.
11. Relevant honors or awards: eh, nothing really. Summa Cum Laude? lmao.
12. Anything else not listed you think might be important: I'm mostly concerned about the lack of longevity in my volunteering. As noted above, nearly all my altruistic experience comes post-undergrad. However, there is not a lack of activities in college, they just weren't primarily service based or medically relevant. Also a bit concerned about my research.. I really enjoy my patient care job, but wonder if it would be "better" to search for some kind of clinical research position during my gap year(s).

Here's some med schools I currently intend on applying to:
Mizzou
UMKC
SLU
Wash U
Columbia
NYU
U Cincy
Vanderbilt

Here's some other schools that I pulled based on LizzyM scores and people with similar stats as mine:
UPenn
Northwestern
Yale
UChicago
Harvard
Johns Hopkins
Cornell
Duke
Mt Sinai
Dartmouth
Loyola
Albert Einstein
Tulane
Hofstra
Rochester
Emory
BU


THANKS!

 

[Faha]

You should receive several interviews from your lists. The top schools are always unpredictable for interviews but schools such as Washington U like high stat applicants. You should receive interviews from your Missouri schools and several of the OOS schools also.

 

[ladymiresa]

You should receive several interviews from your lists. The top schools are always unpredictable for interviews but schools such as Washington U like high stat applicants. You should receive interviews from your Missouri schools and several of the OOS schools also.

Thanks for your response. Do you have any advice to make sure my list is well balanced because, as you say, the top schools are very unpredictable. I guess I'm just nervous of coming back in a year with nothing to show...

 

[Faha]

You are very strong applicant and should receive several interviews if you apply to all the schools you listed.

 

[Willy38]

Would be surprised if you didn't receive multiple top interviews. Def keep Yale on the list 😉

 

[ladymiresa]

Alright, thanks for your guys help! I'm definitely going to have to do more research into schools' missions and how I fit with that to help me narrow down more.

 

[ladymiresa]

Here's my most up-to-date list. It doesn't vary much from the original list. It's probably longer than it needs to be, any insight as to where I might whittle it down? Still trying to be conscious about not being too top-heavy since I've seen a million horror stories about people w/stats similar or better to mine not getting accepted anywhere!

Columbia
Yale
Penn
Chicago
WashU
Hopkins
Stanford
Duke
NYU
Vanderbilt
Pitt (?)
Cornell
Northwestern
Mayo
Dartmouth (?)
Einstein
Keck
Rochester
Hofstra
Mizzou
SLU
Cincinnati
Harvard
Emory (?)
Mt Sinai
BU (?)
Case Western

 

[thenucleusaccumbens]

Here's my most up-to-date list. It doesn't vary much from the original list. It's probably longer than it needs to be, any insight as to where I might whittle it down? Still trying to be conscious about not being too top-heavy since I've seen a million horror stories about people w/stats similar or better to mine not getting accepted anywhere!

Columbia
Yale
Penn
Chicago
WashU
Hopkins
Stanford
Duke
NYU
Vanderbilt
Pitt (?)
Cornell
Northwestern
Mayo
Darmouth (?)
Einstein
Keck
Rochester
Hofstra
Mizzou
SLU
Cincinnati
Harvard
Emory (?)
Mt Sinai
BU (?)
Case Western

your list looks good to me. I agree with others who said that you should definitely get love from the top tier schools. yes, they can be unpredictable, but you're applying broadly enough that I wouldn't be worried. If you want to whittle it down, I think you could take out some of the mid tier schools that might be low yield for you, such as BU (they get over 10k applicants and your stats are way above their avg)