MD & DO 3.9x 510 Reapplicant

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SeeYouNever

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  1. Pre-Medical
Hey everyone, I'm a reapplicant (first cycle was 2019) and hoping to get some feedback on the schools I've applied to. I'm (currently procrastinating on) finishing up my last few secondaries and still waiting for a couple of schools to send me their portals, but I'm wondering if my list is fairly reasonable/safe or if I should add a couple more, and if so, which schools?

GPA: 3.9x sGPA and cGPA
MCAT: 510 (128/127/128/127)
State of residence: NC with strong ties to SC
Race/Gender: White female
Undergrad: Ranked (Top 50) Liberal Arts College

Clinical experience: 800 hours direct patient contact through my clinical research job at a T20 med school (I take vitals, draw blood, assist with non-surgical procedures performed by physicians, and various miscellaneous study-related tasks while our patients are recovering from surgery). This is new, and I focus on it quite a bit in my personal statement and secondaries.
Research experience and productivity: 3200 hours research through clinical research job, no pubs at the time of submitting, but in the last few months my P.I has had me working on several different projects so I could have up to 5 or 6 mid-authorships to update schools with by the end of the year.
500 hours undergrad research, no publications, poster presented at SfN
Shadowing: ~40 hours shadowing various specialties (surgery, pain management, anesthesiology, OBGYN, EM). Also 120 hours shadowing FM, but didn't include since it's from high school. Note: FM was a DO, so I brought up this shadowing experience in every DO secondary.
Non-clinical volunteering: ~300 hours total, mostly from various activities through my sorority, but also includes a science mentorship program that started in the last two years of my undergrad.
Other extracurricular activities: 1000+ leadership hours in a student-run musical theatre organization in college; I only did off-stage work which I thought might be interesting, also one of my most meaningful activities
1200 hours as a camp counselor over 3 summers, also a most meaningful activity
700 hours working during the school year, was basically a student assistant for my school's Research office, but I was also involved in organizing the annual conference of a research program for high school students in my undergrad's state.
Honors/Awards: Phi Beta Kappa?

Schools: Reapps are designated with a *
Albany
Albert Einstein
ECU* (only interview in first cycle, rejected post-II)
FAU
Rosalind Franklin
Drexel
Emory*
Quinnipiac
GW*
Georgetown*
Temple*
MUSC*
NYMC
Penn State
Vermont
Jefferson
Brown*
Tufts
Tulane*
Colorado
Miami*
UNC*
South Carolina
South Carolina - Greenville
Wake Forest*
Wright State

DO:
Edward Via
LECOM (Erie) (Already completed interview, will hear back after Nov 14)
Midwestern (Chicago)
Western (Pomona)
Des Moines
 
Emory and Brown are reaches with your MCAT of 510. You could add these schools:
NOVA MD
Seton Hall
Oakland Beaumont
Wayne State
Medical College Wisconsin
Loyola
St. Louis
Creighton
TCU-UNT
 
Emory and Brown are reaches with your MCAT of 510. You could add these schools:
NOVA MD
Seton Hall
Oakland Beaumont
Wayne State
Medical College Wisconsin
Loyola
St. Louis
Creighton
TCU-UNT

Thank you! And I agree about Emory and Brown, those two and Albert Einstein were definitely my reaches, I think Tufts was also a borderline reach since their median was around a 514 iirc
 
Hey, I'm wondering if you retook the MCAT when you applied this cycle? I'm just surprised that with your stats and app you just got the one interview in 2019
 
Hey, I'm wondering if you retook the MCAT when you applied this cycle? I'm just surprised that with your stats and app you just got the one interview in 2019

Nope! This is actually pretty much the last cycle for my MCAT, it's from summer 2018.

Pretty sure my pitfalls in 2019 mostly came down to:
1. No clinical experience and very little volunteering (I had shadowing hours from HS and college but nothing else)
2. Very bad personal statement - I don't think I even talked about why I wanted to be a doctor, just talked about why I thought I'd be a good one, and even then I think I focused mostly on trying to write a really unique essay. I basically compared my experiences in one of my ECs to medicine, but never brought it around to talk about why I wanted to do medicine in the first place. Which kinda leads into #3 ->
3. I didn't have any clue why I was even applying - I just felt like I'd get in cause my grades were good and MCAT was decent, and I really thought I was unique cause I did theatre and was a camp counselor (LOL).

Thankfully, I've done a LOT of growing since then. I've always wanted to be a doctor and still can't imagine another career for myself, but I never really faced the realities of that until I graduated and started working in a hospital. I have become personal friends with MDs, PhDs, med students, etc, and that's made a huge difference. Gotten a lot of wisdom out of them that's helped me a lot, and getting the chance to work after graduating has helped me really figure out my strengths and values.

Basically, I think I'm a pretty good example of "Stats aren't everything!" According to AAMC, I had a 75% of being accepted somewhere, but I really blew it by not doing my research into the process itself and just going in blind.
 
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