3.9 GPA, 522 MCAT, CA resident

[INMYZONA]

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[68PGunner]

Typical premed gunner application. Nothing special

WL

 

[INMYZONA]

Typical premed gunner application. Nothing special

WL

If you have nothing constructive to say, then why comment? You're just wasting both our time.

 

[Goro]

Gunner is being accurate. Your ECs aren't up the schools your stats qualify for. Boost the patient contact hours and also add some displays of altruism. Ideally, service to others less fortunate than yourself. Stats get you to the door, and ECs get you through. And the higher the pole you want to climb, the slipperier it gets, which means you need to really stand out.

When you get there, I would recommend:

Harvard
Wash U
Yale
Stanford
U Chicago
U Penn
U VA
U MI
Ohio State
U IA
UCSF
UCLA,
UCSD,
UCI,
USC/Keck
UCR (IF you’re from the Inland Empire)
Miami
Albert Einstein
U AZ
Emory
BU
JHU
Mayo (both)

U Cincy
Tulane
U Colorado
U VM
U WI
Jefferson
Pitt
Northwestern
NYU
Vanderbilt
Columbia
Sinai
Cornell
Duke
Case
Hofstra

If you have nothing constructive to say, then why comment? You're just wasting both our time.

 

[WedgeDawg]

You are in the unfortunate situation of having great stats but average to below average ECs. As such, you should apply to top schools, but you really need a strong mid-tier base, more so than others in your stat range.

Here is what I recommend, using your list as a base

UCLA
UCSD
UCSF
UC Davis
UCI
USC-Keck
Stanford
Cornell
Ohio State
Miami
Michigan
Columbia
Harvard
WashU
Penn
Northwestern
Yale
Pitt
UChicago
Hopkins
Case
NYU
UVA
Sinai
Hofstra
Rochester
Einstein
Emory

That's 28 schools. If you for some reason absolutely need to cut down to 25, the ones I would remove are Yale, Harvard, and Hopkins.

The others on your list won't be very high yield for you. I can tell you why for each school if you want. You are not eligible to apply to UCR if you're not from the inland empire, so it has been removed. A lot of the other ones have been removed for yield protection. You around the 90th percentile for most medical schools. Your MCAT is essentially a 38-39 on the old scale. A school with a median of 32 or 33 is going to be hard pressed to interview you because they believe you will not be a high yield applicant for them in terms of matriculation. The schools in your "other" category are either low yield (Mayo) or won't interview you because you're not from their target region (U of Washington etc)

 

[Turkishking]

If you have nothing constructive to say, then why comment? You're just wasting both our time.

Increase the number of clinical experience. I have around 250 hours? The more the better. You're competing against individuals with over 400+ hours.

 

[INMYZONA]

You are in the unfortunate situation of having great stats but average to below average ECs. As such, you should apply to top schools, but you really need a strong mid-tier base, more so than others in your stat range.

Here is what I recommend, using your list as a base

UCLA
UCSD
UCSF
UC Davis
UCI
USC-Keck
Stanford
Cornell
Ohio State
Miami
Michigan
Columbia
Harvard
WashU
Penn
Northwestern
Yale
Pitt
UChicago
Hopkins
Case
NYU
UVA
Sinai
Hofstra
Rochester
Einstein
Emory

That's 28 schools. If you for some reason absolutely need to cut down to 25, the ones I would remove are Yale, Harvard, and Hopkins.

The others on your list won't be very high yield for you. I can tell you why for each school if you want. You are not eligible to apply to UCR if you're not from the inland empire, so it has been removed. A lot of the other ones have been removed for yield protection. You around the 90th percentile for most medical schools. Your MCAT is essentially a 38-39 on the old scale. A school with a median of 32 or 33 is going to be hard pressed to interview you because they believe you will not be a high yield applicant for them in terms of matriculation. The schools in your "other" category are either low yield (Mayo) or won't interview you because you're not from their target region (U of Washington etc)

Thank you for the list! This was exactly what I was looking for. As a side note, I really liked your Applicant Rating System. Keep up the good work.

 

[INMYZONA]

Gunner is being accurate. Your ECs aren't up the schools your stats qualify for. Boost the patient contact hours and also add some displays of altruism. Ideally, service to others less fortunate than yourself. Stats get you to the door, and ECs get you through. And the higher the pole you want to climb, the slipperier it gets, which means you need to really stand out.

When you get there, I would recommend:

Harvard
Wash U
Yale
Stanford
U Chicago
U Penn
U VA
U MI
Ohio State
U IA
UCSF
UCLA,
UCSD,
UCI,
USC/Keck
UCR (IF you’re from the Inland Empire)
Miami
Albert Einstein
U AZ
Emory
BU
JHU
Mayo (both)

U Cincy
Tulane
U Colorado
U VM
U WI
Jefferson
Pitt
Northwestern
NYU
Vanderbilt
Columbia
Sinai
Cornell
Duke
Case
Hofstra

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[INMYZONA]

Increase the number of clinical experience. I have around 250 hours? The more the better. You're competing against individuals with over 400+ hours.

Good point. I'm in the process of increasing my clinical hours. Shadowing would be considered clinical experience right?

 

[shopsteward]

Good point. I'm in the process of increasing my clinical hours. Shadowing would be considered clinical experience right?

Not really. Shadowing is about understanding doctors and what they do. Clinical hours are about understanding the patients and their experience and confirming to yourself that you want to spend your working life helping them.

Your shadowing hours are adequate, as long as they include some primary care doctors. Your hospital volunteer hours are not at all adequate and depending on the quality of the experience may not be much good at all. You need to get plenty of hours in before your application which are down and dirty and at the sharp end of the patient experience (hospice or a care home could be good ones) so that your extra-curriculars start to have some hope of matching up to your stats.

 

[Turkishking]

Good point. I'm in the process of increasing my clinical hours. Shadowing would be considered clinical experience right?

No. Shadowing, and the clinical experience are two different things.
But you can give me a like on my posts. I would appreciate that.

 

[Boogy'sChick15]

Depending on your location in California, you might want to take a look at the Health Scholar Program:
http://copehealthscholars.org/prosp...al-care-extender-prepstep-health-care-scholar

If you apply as soon as possible, and if you have the time to put aside 4 hrs a week, then I would really recommend this program. I say as soon as possible because the deadline for the next 3 month rotation is in 2 days, Tuesday 11/15, and the application process takes a while. They would prefer you to stay until you reach 280 hrs, which usually takes 6 rotations (18 months). They also provide an accelerated program, which is two 4 hours shifts a week and reduces the time in half for graduation.

However, I know many people who just did a few rotations and then left before the 280 hrs. The only thing that sucks about leaving early is you don't receive the certificate of completion, the college credit they offer, or the letter of recommendation. So you could either just do a couple months, get some volunteer clinical exposure, and then leave, or in case you do not get into any schools, just stick around to get more hours until the next application period.

This program offers hands on clinical experience working with patients and the hospital staff. I have been doing for about 2 years now and I personally love it. If you have the time and really want some more clinical volunteer hours, I highly recommend it.

 

[Domepiece]

Depending on your location in California, you might want to take a look at the Health Scholar Program:
http://copehealthscholars.org/prosp...al-care-extender-prepstep-health-care-scholar

This program is well structured, but also highly bureaucratic and accordingly slow. An application now would lead to training and a first rotation in January. The program is tiered and the first 2-3 rotations (aka 6-9 months) aren't too exciting, but offer solid patient contact and experience. However, they offer an accelerated track which may be of more interest to you, which is 3 months of 24 hour-per-week volunteering and would bump up your hours significantly before application submission.

Unfortunately, similar to med school seats in CA, demand far exceeds supply with many hospital volunteering programs, and many will have lengthy applying and orientation processes similar to that described. Others on this website have suggested nursing homes as a way to orient oneself with patient care, and these may be less impacted and inundated with red tape although I do not have personal experience in this arena.

Best of luck, buddy.

 

[radian313]

Please do not put exercising as an EC.....think along the lines of social, philanthropic activities. Unless you a professionally compete in a bodybuilding competition, thats diff. Im sure there is a place for this somewhere in your application, just I would advise against using it as a EC because it comes off as a space filler.

 

[INMYZONA]

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