MD 4.0, 518 MCAT TX resident ORM (worried about EC hours)

[appropriatepeanut]

Hi! My top top choice in Texas is UTSW and Baylor. I am a little worried about my EC hours as some people have far more than me. Do you think my hours are competitive enough for these two schools, and is there any areas which you feel I am lagging and need to bring up before my application is submitted?

sGPA: 4.0 cGPA: 3.99
MCAT: 518 (130/127/131/130)
Residency: TX
Race: Asian (female)

Clinical experience:
-150 hours of clinical volunteering. Most of my hours came from being a volunteer medical assistant for a neurologist and helping check patients in at a low income clinic. As most of my my clinical volunteering was at out patient clinics, so I am going starting to volunteer at a hospital soon and am hoping to get a couple hours in before I submit my application. I will continue it throughout the remainder of college.

Research experience:
-288 hours at a neuroplasticity research lab from freshman to sophomore year. I mainly habituated mice and set them up for their daily experiments.
- I currently research for the head of the Biology Department at my university. I started there 3/18 and will have a total of roughly 300 hours by the time I apply. I have a bacterial genomic project assigned to me by my PI that I run all of the experiments for, and my post doc guides me/helps me interpret my findings. I don't have any posters or publications.

Shadowing:
- 52 hours from shadowing a neurologist, an infectious disease physician at UTSW, and a primary care physician.

Non-clinical volunteering:
- 150 hours currently (ongoing) at a counseling center for battered women and children. I started in child care while their mothers where in therapy and moved up to working the crisis line. I help women in immediate danger get connected with our shelter, help homeless people in the DFW area find shelter, and distribute donated items.
- 30 hours currently (ongoing) at an english conversation program run through my school. I meet with a foreign student every week and help him with his English and help him get acclimated with American culture.

Other:
- 27.5 hours teaching assistant for a biology course (done 2 semesters and will continue being a TA for this class until I graduate.)
- will be a teaching assistant for Biochemistry I this summer.

Awards:
- Received full academic tuition and a stipend at my college for my grades.
- Dean's list for all my semesters (currently a second semester junior right now).

I will be applying to all of the TX schools.

Thank you so much for your help.

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[Faha]

You should receive several interviews from your Texas schools.

 

[appropriatepeanut]

You should receive several interviews from your Texas schools.

Thank you! Did you find any of EC hours too low?

 

[Faha]

Your EC's are fine for the Texas schools.

 

[appropriatepeanut]

Your EC's are fine for the Texas schools.

Thank you so much for your help!

 

[Walter Raleigh]

You are also borderline rock star although your EC hours are low for top 20s. Throw a few OOS top-20s on your list for the heck of it if you feel so inclined.

 

[appropriatepeanut]

You are also borderline rock star although your EC hours are low for top 20s. Throw a few OOS top-20s on your list for the heck of it if you feel so inclined.

Thank you so much for your help! I was a little worried about that. I took a full course load (12 hours) the summer after my sophomore year to get some classes in that would help me for the MCAT, so I have only had one summer completely off to volunteer/research everyday (summer after freshman year). I still researched and volunteered the summer I went to school, but I could not devote as much time as I normally do in the summer to it. Do you think med schools would take that into consideration since they are able to see my course history? Also, my final grades are not released until mid May for my school so I was going to take the opportunity and squeeze in as many hours I can between now and then. Do you think getting an additional 20-30 hours for my non-clinical volunteering and starting my hospital volunteering will help push me up or is that not enough hours to do so?

 

[Walter Raleigh]

Your EC hours are only on the low side for top-20 schools; they are slightly below average but definitely adequate. Hospital volunteering might be valuable. Fifty hours of that, plus the nonclinical volunteering you plan to do, means you're golden. Word here is that Texans need to be rock stars to get OOS interviews and acceptances; you're either a rock star or close enough that if you want to add a few top-20s to your list, feel free to do so. @Goro, @LizzyM, care to weigh in? Are you gunning for the likes of Harvard or Stanford?

 

[Goro]

Your EC hours are only on the low side for top-20 schools; they are slightly below average but definitely adequate. Hospital volunteering might be valuable. Fifty hours of that, plus the nonclinical volunteering you plan to do, means you're golden. Word here is that Texans need to be rock stars to get OOS interviews and acceptances; you're either a rock star or close enough that if you want to add a few top-20s to your list, feel free to do so. @Goro, @LizzyM, care to weigh in? Are you gunning for the likes of Harvard or Stanford?

I agree with Walt. OP, if to you wish to aim, your app has to be high.

 

[LizzyM]

OP certainly can apply to the top 20 schools that welcome OOS applicants. Application is good enough for an interview at those schools.

 

[vaticrunner]

Current Texas applicant with a lot of friends going through the cycle. With the dallas connections you have, UTSW should be within reach. I really wouldn't waste your time on OOS. Tuition is significantly higher and unless you have a very exciting life story or notable outside extracurricular activities you will most likely be donating money to the schools. I recommend looking at the mdapplicants profile of dololol and deciding if you think its worth it to apply oos.

 

[appropriatepeanut]

Your EC hours are only on the low side for top-20 schools; they are slightly below average but definitely adequate. Hospital volunteering might be valuable. Fifty hours of that, plus the nonclinical volunteering you plan to do, means you're golden. Word here is that Texans need to be rock stars to get OOS interviews and acceptances; you're either a rock star or close enough that if you want to add a few top-20s to your list, feel free to do so. @Goro, @LizzyM, care to weigh in? Are you gunning for the likes of Harvard or Stanford?

Thanks again for all your help! No honestly I’m not trying for any out of state schools really. I keep reading former med school students give advice to graduate with minimal amount of loans, so I am trying to stay in state. Thank you again your response was really helpful!

 

[appropriatepeanut]

I agree with Walt. OP, if to you wish to aim, your app has to be high.

Thank you for your advice; I really appreciate it!!

 

[appropriatepeanut]

OP certainly can apply to the top 20 schools that welcome OOS applicants. Application is good enough for an interview at those schools.

Thank you so much for your help!

 

[appropriatepeanut]

Current Texas applicant with a lot of friends going through the cycle. With the dallas connections you have, UTSW should be within reach. I really wouldn't waste your time on OOS. Tuition is significantly higher and unless you have a very exciting life story or notable outside extracurricular activities you will most likely be donating money to the schools. I recommend looking at the mdapplicants profile of dololol and deciding if you think its worth it to apply oos.

I am really trying to stay in Texas for those two reasons as well. Thank you so much for your help, and good luck with your cycle!

 

[dodolol21]

Hopping on kind've late, but agree with vaticrunner. I applied with 3.95/520 and got 2 IIs OOS, which turned into one hold -> R and one WL. My friend applied with similar ECs and 3.95/519 and got 0 IIs OOS. Both of us got all the same IIs in TX, and my friend just got into Baylor. I'm holding McGovern with a decent scholarship. As an asian without a great story and unexceptional ECs I would say the best plan of action that saves money, causes less anxiety, and makes the whole thing easier is just to apply to the following --

AMCAS: Baylor, TCU UNT
TMDSAS: UTSW, UTH, UTSA, UTMB ,UT Dell, UH, TAMU

 

[peperjack236]

I applied this cycle as a texas resident with 516/3.98 from a large instate public school. I only applied to TMDSAS and Baylor. I received II's from all texas schools including baylor and I currently have acceptances to both UTSW and Baylor (haven't chosen yet)
I lack any impressive story of overcoming adversity or exceptional credentials or any stellar LOR and I'm an ORM. I also didn't submit any primaries until late september (DON'T RECOMMEND THIS).

I'd be willing to bet that you'll almost surely get excepted into either Baylor or UTSW if not both as long as you don't have red flags (criminal history or flagrantly negative LOR) and write decently well (but again you don't have to be exceptional). I have several friends with similar stats to mine get into both UTSW and Baylor as well so this isn't anecdotal. Also, though it is tougher to apply OOS, I'd be willing to bet that if you applied to all T20's you'd defs get into some, but as noted by others the tuition diff vs baylor/utsw isn't worth imo unless you wanna go into academic med or get a scholarship/aid.

Good luck with apps future doc! 🙂

 

[appropriatepeanut]

I applied this cycle as a texas resident with 516/3.98 from a large instate public school. I only applied to TMDSAS and Baylor. I received II's from all texas schools including baylor and I currently have acceptances to both UTSW and Baylor (haven't chosen yet)
I lack any impressive story of overcoming adversity or exceptional credentials or any stellar LOR and I'm an ORM. I also didn't submit any primaries until late september (DON'T RECOMMEND THIS).

I'd be willing to bet that you'll almost surely get excepted into either Baylor or UTSW if not both as long as you don't have red flags (criminal history or flagrantly negative LOR) and write decently well (but again you don't have to be exceptional). I have several friends with similar stats to mine get into both UTSW and Baylor as well so this isn't anecdotal. Also, though it is tougher to apply OOS, I'd be willing to bet that if you applied to all T20's you'd defs get into some, but as noted by others the tuition diff vs baylor/utsw isn't worth imo unless you wanna go into academic med or get a scholarship/aid.

Good luck with apps future doc! 🙂

Congrats on your acceptances! Thank you so much for your help! Do you mind if I message you individually to ask some questions about UTSW and Baylor specifically?

 

[peperjack236]

Congrats on your acceptances! Thank you so much for your help! Do you mind if I message you individually to ask some questions about UTSW and Baylor specifically?

Of course friend!

 

[vaticrunner]

I applied this cycle as a texas resident with 516/3.98 from a large instate public school. I only applied to TMDSAS and Baylor. I received II's from all texas schools including baylor and I currently have acceptances to both UTSW and Baylor (haven't chosen yet)
I lack any impressive story of overcoming adversity or exceptional credentials or any stellar LOR and I'm an ORM. I also didn't submit any primaries until late september (DON'T RECOMMEND THIS).

I'd be willing to bet that you'll almost surely get excepted into either Baylor or UTSW if not both as long as you don't have red flags (criminal history or flagrantly negative LOR) and write decently well (but again you don't have to be exceptional). I have several friends with similar stats to mine get into both UTSW and Baylor as well so this isn't anecdotal. Also, though it is tougher to apply OOS, I'd be willing to bet that if you applied to all T20's you'd defs get into some, but as noted by others the tuition diff vs baylor/utsw isn't worth imo unless you wanna go into academic med or get a scholarship/aid.

Good luck with apps future doc! 🙂

If you don't mind me asking, did you take a gap year?