MD 38 MCAT, 3.87 GPA...help with schools please!!

[fermata125]

Hi all! First of all, sorry about the length of this post...I'm relatively new to SDN (been lurking since last summer, but made barely any comments) and I've been freaking out about where to apply based on my stats.

That said, I would be so appreciative if somebody could take a look at my stats, info and tentative school list and provide some comments or suggestions about where I should apply! I'm doing the best I can with MSAR (yes I purchased it), school websites, books, etc. but I feel like people who are "in the game" would have a better idea. So...here goes!

Stats:
Not-URM, not disadvantaged
New York resident
Just graduated (May 2014) from 4-year private institution in NY; B.S. in Molecular Genetics; music minor
3.87 cumulative GPA (Science GPA is likely around there, but I haven't calculated it yet)
38 MCAT (12/11/15)--this was my second try (April 2014). First try was a 31 (12/08/11) (August 2013)

Clinical/Research ECs:
~200 hours shadowing an ophthalmologist (right now my desired specialty) at a Bronx clinic. Included some patient interaction, and observation of several eye surgeries.
~160 hours intern at an orthodontist's practice; included a lot of direct patient contact
~350 hours research at NIH as a Summer Intern. I worked in the National Eye Institute; included a visit to the clinic for some shadowing. Got a poster out of it, which I presented at my school's poster session.
~200 hours as an unpaid volunteer assisting with ophthalmic/epidemiology research (data collection/organization). Got a poster out of it.
-About 2 years (3 semesters) of research in a lab at school. 10-18 hours a week depending on the semester. Got a lot of great scientific knowledge, but no publications (SO close this past semester). But, a really great LOR from my PI there, and I got an Independent Research credit for each semester.

Other ECs:
-TA for a genetics class (2 semesters, including head TA for 1 of them) and Biology lab (1 semester)
-Biology tutor (1 semester)
-Assistant Resident Adviser to a hall of about 30 freshmen--responsible for fostering a communal atmosphere and planning group social/community service events (1 year)
-member of Society of Undergraduate Biology Students; Running Club; Pit Orchestra; Wind Ensemble
-Running Club executive board (1 semester)
-participant in Journal Club at NIH (summer)
-editor for Journal of Undergraduate Research (3 semesters)
-Worked ~15 hours/week at local library for 1 summer during college (while internship-hunting)

Honors/Awards/Scholarships:
Dean's List (all 8 semesters)
Recipient of Bio Department prize (1 of 10 students to receive it)
Dean's Academic Scholarship recipient (all semesters)
Scholarship for music achievement (all semesters)
Various other scholarships

Letters of Recommendation: Likely very good/strong. Includes a committee letter from my school

Hobbies:
Running, reading, playing music (piano/clarinet), even a little bit of dance here and there.

School List
-here we go!! General trend of this list is from "safer" schools to "reach" schools. My plan is to draw from this list to have about 20 schools by the time I whittle it down. Obviously it's kind of a huge list now so bear with me as I try to figure it out!! (Schools with * are ones that I'm 99% sure I want to apply to.)

Rush
Albany
New York Medical College
Thomas Jefferson*
Hofstra
Temple
SUNY Buffalo*
Rosalind Franklin
Wake Forest*
SUNY Upstate*
SUNY Downstate*
Tufts
St. Louis
UNC
Rochester*
Stony Brook*
Dartmouth*
Emory
Boston
Case Western*
Columbia*
Duke
Hopkins
NYU
Northwestern
Pittsburgh
Vanderbilt
Harvard
Mt. Sinai
U Chicago
Yale
U Penn*
Wash U

I know it's "top-heavy" especially when you get into Hopkins and below. I really liked UPenn from its website so I think I want to apply there, and I know I want to "reach" to a few other places but I really have no clue how to decide where. (I do like WashU...) Since I want to apply to ~20 and have 11 "definites", I guess I'm really just trying to narrow down the others to about 9 or so that I would be likely to get into.

So--any suggestions are much appreciated!! Feel free to add/delete from this list as you want. Please and thank you!! I'm excited to hear from you all and I'm very receptive to any sort of constructive criticism. Be honest--I would be very appreciative.

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[Goro]

I'm extremely worried that you don't have enough honest-to-God patient contact experience. If you can spin your shadowing (200 hr with a eye doc is overkill) into something that shows you understand what you're getting into, then you'd be at less risk for being one of those high achieving people who get rejected because you never actually demonstrated you want to be around sick people, much less actually touch them.

Your non-clinical ECs make me even more worried. Have you ever set foot off of campus to help someone? You need to get out of your comfort zone. Demonstrate your altruism and humanism.

Goro's list

Albany
Stanford
USC
New York Medical College
Hofstra
SUNY Buffalo*
Wake Forest*
SUNY Upstate*
SUNY Downstate*
Stony Brook
U VA
U MI
Tufts
St. Louis
Rochester*
Stony Brook*
Dartmouth*
Emory
Boston
Case Western*
Columbia*
Duke
Hopkins
NYU
Northwestern
Pittsburgh
Vanderbilt
Harvard
Mt. Sinai
U Chicago
Yale
U Penn*
Wash U
Emory
Baylor (maybe)
Cornell

 

[fermata125]

Thanks so much for your reply Goro--I was starting to worry nobody was going to read my post. I appreciate your comments!
Re: Your questions--

I'm almost certain I can spin the shadowing experiences into more patient contact hours; while what I did there was mostly "shadowing" in the literal sense I did have several days of experience talking with patients, discussing their various eye conditions, etc. It was a busy clinic in the Bronx and so I wasn't allowed to do too much hands-on stuff, but I did see a great deal of pretty nasty eye illnesses and the effect they have on patients, as well as their treatment. So it wasn't as "hands-on" as I would have liked it to be but I for sure understood what it was like to have to be around sick people and what I would have to do in order to treat them.

The orthodontist thing was more hands-on patient stuff, but much less serious: things like updating patient charts in the computer, assisting the orthodontist to put on braces by holding tools/UV up to the patient's mouth, etc. Not heavy-duty stuff or "sick people" stuff but it still gave me contact with people in a clinic and gave me an understanding of how professional I need to be when speaking to them.

So do you suggest I try to elaborate on these in the actual application? I should also mention that I'm going to be at the NIH as a post-baccalaureate trainee for the next year where I will definitely be volunteering in a medical sense--should I mention that as well?

As for the non-clinical ECs, you're right that I didn't stretch myself out enough past the confines of my campus, but much of what I did as a TA/tutor/assistant RA was about demonstrating altruism--it just wasn't all off-campus. As the assistant RA, I helped organize various community service events both on-campus and off, including blood drives and community clean-ups. I hope to elaborate on my TA experience in the app to explain that I went out of my way to help students who needed it (something that wasn't required as part of the job); I was recognized for this by the students and by the professor who will be writing my LOR. Otherwise, schoolwork kind of caught up with me and made it difficult to mobilize myself into many off-campus community service projects... Again I want to explain more of this in the app but I hope it all comes across clearly to the AdComs.

So I guess my question to you now is: do I still have a chance? I think I can manage to elaborate on the patient contact bit to make it clear that I know what I'm getting myself into, especially since I'll be doing more of it next year. I am worried about the non-clinical ECs though, most of which I can't change now... So do you think there are any schools on my list I still have a chance of getting into? And if not, can you think of any I ought to apply to instead?

Thanks again so much for your advice, I really appreciate it.

 

[pyrrion89]

Try doing some hospice volunteering right now and during the application cycle. It's good patient contact. You can also try some more traditional clinical volunteering too. MD/PhD programs may appreciate your more research and stats heavy application more than MD programs.