3rd Time Applicant. Need help with school list!

[imcanadaian]

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Hi! I've been working hard these past few days trying to get things together to apply this upcoming cycle in June, and one of the big hurdles I've been trying to get over is finalizing a list of schools I want to apply to so I can start reaching out and researching in depth, see if I have friends or connections, and just overall get a better feel for the schools I'm applying to so it's not a huge crapshoot come application time.

I'm a CA resident, graduating from UC Berkeley in 2009. I've spent the first year out of college teaching MCAT's for Kaplan, and then transitioned to my current job at a CRO where I analyze patient brain MRI's for an Alzheimer's clinical trial. I recently re-took my MCAT (since it expired..) and am going into the application process with the following:

3.6 cGPA
3.6 sGPA
36S MCAT (12V 12PS 12BS)
EC's (reverse chronological):
post-college
-currently shadowing a neuroradiologist ~16hrs a month for the past 7 months
-currently a volunteer at the hospital ER (150+ hours)
-I'm taking a medical microbio course at UC Extension - doing well thus far so hope I get an A!
-volunteer at a weekly urban community education program (4hr/wk)
-volunteer in Church Children's Ministry, leadership, community outreach events (we host these family nights for local urban families), etc
-interned for one year as a campus ministry intern immediately upon graduating college
college
-Intern at Bayer healthcare for a summer
-Chemistry tutor
-Health educator for local high schools
-4-year leader in on-campus Christian Fellowship
-three years of research in neuroscience and Alzheimer's
-Volunteer at local literacy project

*I mainly focused on bolstering my clinical volunteering and adding shadowing experiences post-college...these were markedly missing from my application when I applied a few years ago, so I definitely made it a priority to make time for these opportunities after I graduated from school.

Currently, my list of schools is at 40 schools...mostly allopathic with a handful of osteo schools. I had to slash my list down from an initial 66! But I decided to focus my "hopeful" schools to those in CA and in places where I really wanted to be in the next four years. What do you guys think about my general chances? Am I missing any schools I should be considering?

Arizona - Phoenix
Arizona - Tuscon
USC
Loma Linda Univeristy
Stanford Univeristy
UC Davis
UC Irvine
UCLA
UC San Diego
UC San Francisco
George Washington University
University of Miami - Miller
University of Central Florida
Emory University
University of Illinois at Chicago
Rosalind Franklin University
Loyola Stritch
Boston University
Tufts University
University of Maryland
Michigan State
Wake Forest Univeristy
Creighton
Albany Medical College
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
New York Medical College
University of Rochester
SUNY Downstate
University of Buffalo
Drexel Univeristy
Penn State Univeristy
Temple
Brown - Alpert
Virginia Commonwealth
Virginia Tech
University of Vermont
Touro (osteo)
Midwestern University Chicago (osteo)
Michigan State (osteo)
Oklahoma State (osteo)

Thanks everyone!

 

[Bernoull]

Hi! I've been working hard these past few days trying to get things together to apply this upcoming cycle in June, and one of the big hurdles I've been trying to get over is finalizing a list of schools I want to apply to so I can start reaching out and researching in depth, see if I have friends or connections, and just overall get a better feel for the schools I'm applying to so it's not a huge crapshoot come application time.

I'm a CA resident, graduating from UC Berkeley in 2009. I've spent the first year out of college teaching MCAT's for Kaplan, and then transitioned to my current job at a CRO where I analyze patient brain MRI's for an Alzheimer's clinical trial. I recently re-took my MCAT (since it expired..) and am going into the application process with the following:

3.6 cGPA
3.6 sGPA
36S MCAT (12V 12PS 12BS)
EC's (reverse chronological):
post-college
-currently shadowing a neuroradiologist ~16hrs a month for the past 7 months
-currently a volunteer at the hospital ER (150+ hours)
-I'm taking a medical microbio course at UC Extension - doing well thus far so hope I get an A!
-volunteer at a weekly urban community education program (4hr/wk)
-volunteer in Church Children's Ministry, leadership, community outreach events (we host these family nights for local urban families), etc
-interned for one year as a campus ministry intern immediately upon graduating college
college
-Intern at Bayer healthcare for a summer
-Chemistry tutor
-Health educator for local high schools
-4-year leader in on-campus Christian Fellowship
-three years of research in neuroscience and Alzheimer's
-Volunteer at local literacy project

*I mainly focused on bolstering my clinical volunteering and adding shadowing experiences post-college...these were markedly missing from my application when I applied a few years ago, so I definitely made it a priority to make time for these opportunities after I graduated from school.

Currently, my list of schools is at 40 schools...mostly allopathic with a handful of osteo schools. I had to slash my list down from an initial 66! But I decided to focus my "hopeful" schools to those in CA and in places where I really wanted to be in the next four years. What do you guys think about my general chances? Am I missing any schools I should be considering?

Arizona - Phoenix
Arizona - Tuscon
USC
Loma Linda Univeristy
Stanford Univeristy
UC Davis
UC Irvine
UCLA
UC San Diego
UC San Francisco
George Washington University
University of Miami - Miller
University of Central Florida
Emory University
University of Illinois at Chicago
Rosalind Franklin University
Loyola Stritch
Boston University
Tufts University
University of Maryland
Michigan State
Wake Forest Univeristy
Creighton
Albany Medical College
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
New York Medical College
University of Rochester
SUNY Downstate
University of Buffalo
Drexel Univeristy
Penn State Univeristy
Temple
Brown - Alpert
Virginia Commonwealth
Virginia Tech
University of Vermont
Touro (osteo)
Midwestern University Chicago (osteo)
Michigan State (osteo)
Oklahoma State (osteo)

Thanks everyone!

I'm curious about what happened during ur last ur applications (assuming u had the similar stats)?

 

[Jlaw]

Your stats are great, if you applied with them and didn't get in before there is a major red flag you are omitting or something else we are missing.

 

[imcanadaian]

I definitely didn't apply as broadly before, and my shadowing experience and recent commitment to clinical volunteering didn't come until after I graduated from school. Also I think my letters of rec will be much better this time around from people I've worked close with through work and shadowing.

I've done a lot after my past failed attempts to apply to improve my mistakes and shortcomings from before. So I'm glad that my efforts, at least on the surface, have paid off in putting me in a better position to apply!

 

[makauzi]

From what I have read and heard both Arizona Tuscon and Phoenix mostly take Arizona residents, over 90%. Maybe substitute them with EVMS and Feinberg, you should get into both.

 

[prowd2beloud147]

Hi! I've been working hard these past few days trying to get things together to apply this upcoming cycle in June, and one of the big hurdles I've been trying to get over is finalizing a list of schools I want to apply to so I can start reaching out and researching in depth, see if I have friends or connections, and just overall get a better feel for the schools I'm applying to so it's not a huge crapshoot come application time.

I'm a CA resident, graduating from UC Berkeley in 2009. I've spent the first year out of college teaching MCAT's for Kaplan, and then transitioned to my current job at a CRO where I analyze patient brain MRI's for an Alzheimer's clinical trial. I recently re-took my MCAT (since it expired..) and am going into the application process with the following:

3.6 cGPA
3.6 sGPA
36S MCAT (12V 12PS 12BS)
EC's (reverse chronological):
post-college
-currently shadowing a neuroradiologist ~16hrs a month for the past 7 months
-currently a volunteer at the hospital ER (150+ hours)
-I'm taking a medical microbio course at UC Extension - doing well thus far so hope I get an A!
-volunteer at a weekly urban community education program (4hr/wk)
-volunteer in Church Children's Ministry, leadership, community outreach events (we host these family nights for local urban families), etc
-interned for one year as a campus ministry intern immediately upon graduating college
college
-Intern at Bayer healthcare for a summer
-Chemistry tutor
-Health educator for local high schools
-4-year leader in on-campus Christian Fellowship
-three years of research in neuroscience and Alzheimer's
-Volunteer at local literacy project

*I mainly focused on bolstering my clinical volunteering and adding shadowing experiences post-college...these were markedly missing from my application when I applied a few years ago, so I definitely made it a priority to make time for these opportunities after I graduated from school.

Currently, my list of schools is at 40 schools...mostly allopathic with a handful of osteo schools. I had to slash my list down from an initial 66! But I decided to focus my "hopeful" schools to those in CA and in places where I really wanted to be in the next four years. What do you guys think about my general chances? Am I missing any schools I should be considering?

Arizona - Phoenix
Arizona - Tuscon
USC
Loma Linda Univeristy
Stanford Univeristy
UC Davis
UC Irvine
UCLA
UC San Diego
UC San Francisco
George Washington University
University of Miami - Miller
University of Central Florida
Emory University
University of Illinois at Chicago
Rosalind Franklin University
Loyola Stritch
Boston University
Tufts University
University of Maryland
Michigan State
Wake Forest Univeristy
Creighton
Albany Medical College
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
New York Medical College
University of Rochester
SUNY Downstate
University of Buffalo
Drexel Univeristy
Penn State Univeristy
Temple
Brown - Alpert
Virginia Commonwealth
Virginia Tech
University of Vermont
Touro (osteo)
Midwestern University Chicago (osteo)
Michigan State (osteo)
Oklahoma State (osteo)

Thanks everyone!

With your statistics there must have been something horrible in your application! Did you get an interview anywhere? Are your LOR's good? How is your personal statement? Those are things I would ask myself. Also, Michigan State D.O and M.D programs only accept 10% of ppl from out of state so I could cross those out and stick with schools in your state. From what I have read a lot of schools in California favor their residents!

Good luck, I'm sure you'll get accepted somewhere, and hopefully it will be your number one choice😀

 

[imcanadaian]

Yeah like I said before I am suspecting my clinical experiences were very lacking before. I didn't have any shadowing and recent hospital volunteering the last time I applied. Because of this I took steps to ensure that I bolster those parts of my application before diving in once again.

Its comforting to know that the steps I've taken these past few years were the right ones in boosting my application! I even believe that thus time around I can get stronger LORs too. My biggest worry is that my slightly lower than average GPA will make it more difficult to get into the top programs, especially in California where I really want to stay!

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using SDN Mobile

 

[dbizzy]

I hope that the previous lack of clinical experience really was the main factor that caused you to get rejected twice. Really do an in-depth analysis of your apps from these past two cycles and see if there's anything, anything at all, that could have been the culprit, i.e. negative LORs, interviewing faux pas, etc. Other than that, your stats look pretty damn good.

Your chances at MD seem fine, but since this is your third time applying, adding a few more osteopathic schools really couldn't hurt. Like someone had mentioned before, as an out-of-state applicant, your chances at public and state-funded DO schools are severely limited. You might want to consider replacing MSU (oos tuition $79,000) and OSU with some "tier I" private DO schools, i.e. PCOM, Western, DMU, KCUMB, etc. Good luck.