MD 3.9 GPA, 520 MCAT, school list help please!

[Memetic_Mutation]

Hi all,

First post here; sorry if I make any mistakes or leave out something important!

Stats:
- Asian at Midwestern university, traditional applicant
- CA resident
- 3.9 cGPA, 3.95 sGPA
- 520 MCAT (98th percentile), ~37 on old scale

ECs:
- Clinical volunteering: 300+ hrs. in state psych hospital (past two summers) and 30 hrs. in ER (will be continuing into upcoming school year)
- Shadowing: 25 hrs. with psychiatrist at psych hospital
- Research: 300+ hrs. in clinical psych research (no publications; received research grant for summer project)
- Leadership: 400+ hrs. in cultural club (president)
- Nonclinical volunteering: 150+ hrs. with service club whose goal is helping students from low-income backgrounds get into college and increasing their retention rate once in college

Miscellany:
- Good LoRs (2 science profs, 1 non-science, 1 PI, 1 from club advisor)
- Average (?) PS

(Edited) school list:
- St. Louis Univ.
- UMich
- Case Western
- Vanderbilt
- Northwestern
- UC Irvine
- UC Davis
- UCSD
- UCLA
- UCSF
- USC
- Stanford
- Mayo
- WashU
- Pitt
- Rochester

I'm hoping to apply to ~20 schools in CA and the Midwest, and I would appreciate any advice for school additions or removals. Thanks for taking your time to look through this post!

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[WedgeDawg]

You're a very average+ candidate for top tier schools. You can apply wherever you want and be competitive.

I would remove Rosalind Franklin and Loyola, unless you have compelling reasons to attend there. Remove UC Riverside unless you're from the Inland Empire area of CA. Consider adding WashU, Mayo, and Chicago (Pritzker) in the midwest.

If you're not opposed to east coast schools, then I would look into Harvard, Hopkins, Penn, Yale, Columbia, Duke, NYU, Cornell, Sinai, Pitt, UVA, Emory, Rochester, Einstein, and Wake Forest.

 

[Memetic_Mutation]

Thanks for the advice! I will definitely look into the east coast schools and the top tier Midwest ones. Do you think my relative lack of research would be a red flag to the research-heavy schools, though?

 

[WedgeDawg]

Thanks for the advice! I will definitely look into the east coast schools and the top tier Midwest ones. Do you think my relative lack of research would be a red flag to the research-heavy schools, though?

Depends. It's sometimes hard to judge research based purely on number of hours spent on it. Even though you don't have publications, do you have posters, presentations, abstracts, a thesis, or anything else to show at least some productivity? I don't think it would be a huge issue overall.

 

[Memetic_Mutation]

Depends. It's sometimes hard to judge research based purely on number of hours spent on it. Even though you don't have publications, do you have posters, presentations, abstracts, a thesis, or anything else to show at least some productivity? I don't think it would be a huge issue overall.

I don't have anything tangible right now, but I should by the end of the summer (presentation and poster), with a senior thesis to follow. (I joined the lab 1.5 years ago, when we started a large study that has just recently finished data collection.)

 

[WedgeDawg]

I don't have anything tangible right now, but I should by the end of the summer (presentation and poster), with a senior thesis to follow. (I joined the lab 1.5 years ago, when we started a large study that has just recently finished data collection.)

You're fine then

 

[Memetic_Mutation]

Thanks for all of your advice! Much appreciated.

 

[Banco]

Agree with Wedgedawg, he gave you good advice. You have an excellent app.