4.0 GPA, 516 MCAT, What schools should I aim for?

[DrivenAndDangerous]

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4.0 - State school, biomedical engineering undergraduate major

**EDIT: AZ State resident**

MCAT: 516 (131, 126, 129, 130) (Jan 19, 2017 test day)

EC's (go easy on me)

200+ volunteer hours with Hospice (main "clinical" experience) and Feed My Starving Children

Distinguished summer (2016) research internship with exposure to pathology lab and 2 autopsies

Another summer volunteering in hospital, but summer before my freshmen year of college

Work as math/physics tutor on campus 8-12 hours/week

Various club involvement, member of engineering honors society, treasurer of Biomedical Engineering Society, and membership experience with other medical-related/engineering-related clubs

Possible clinical internship this summer (applying now), but of course that wouldn't go on app - plan to apply this summer


I really haven't looked much into schools, but I figured I'd get some advice on here first. Spring break is coming up and I'm going to need to start getting things together. UCLA and University of Washington have sparked interest - although I'm sure I'll be told UCLA is a reach and a half.

Thank you and lay it on me.

 

[bears1992]

I did M.E. with a 3.51 in the program and I thought that was impresive. A 4.0 in biomedical is like the most impresive gpa an applicant can have. I know adcoms don't care about major but kudos. I don't have any school advice, I just thought I would comment as a fellow engineer and say wow.

 

[DrivenAndDangerous]

I did M.E. with a 3.51 in the program and I thought that was impresive. A 4.0 in biomedical is like the most impresive gpa an applicant can have. I know adcoms don't care about major but kudos. I don't have any school advice, I just thought I would comment as a fellow engineer and say wow.

Why thank you! Hopefully the GPA shines thru some of the weak EC's. The BME degree was supposed to help my application stand out, but yes, as you've mentioned I've unfortunately learned it doesn't matter much. Yay engineering!

 

[bears1992]

Why thank you! Hopefully the GPA shines thru some of the weak EC's. The BME degree was supposed to help my application stand out, but yes, as you've mentioned I've unfortunately learned it doesn't matter much. Yay engineering!

I thought the same thing. I just assumed adcoms wouldn't view a 3.5 basket weaving major the same as a 3.5 chemical engineer but somehow they are the same to med schools.

It looks like you've checked all the boxes except shadowing. I think 50 hours is what med schools consider adequate. I think you should be competitive for all MD schools except the ones that accept really high MCAT 520+ and the ones that require substantial research. You should purchase the MSAR to figure out what schools those are (probably less than 20). I imagine you are golden for every bottom, middle and half of the upper tier. I'm looking to apply DO so I don't know much about specific MD schools but I did purchase the MSAR and it has lots of info and stats about maltriculants for MD schools.

 

[DrivenAndDangerous]

I thought the same thing. I just assumed adcoms wouldn't view a 3.5 basket weaving major the same as a 3.5 chemical engineer but somehow they are the same to med schools.

It looks like you've checked all the boxes except shadowing. I think 50 hours is what med schools consider adequate. I think you should be competitive for all MD schools except the ones that accept really high MCAT 520+ and the ones that require substantial research. You should purchase the MSAR to figure out what schools those are (probably less than 20). I imagine you are golden for every bottom, middle and half of the upper tier. I'm looking to apply DO so I don't know much about specific MD schools but I did purchase the MSAR and it has lots of info and stats about maltriculants for MD schools.

Thank you for that! Yes I'm planning to purchase the MSAR very soon. Clearly I'm needing some help with where to apply so I'll take all the data and information I can get.

 

[bears1992]

Thank you for that! Yes I'm planning to purchase the MSAR very soon. Clearly I'm needing some help with where to apply so I'll take all the data and information I can get.

Check to see what % of a schools students have research experience. If it's close to 100% I would probably avoid applying there as they are probably looking for students with substantial research experience. Also, assuming you are not URM, avoid schools that have a high URM yield (MSAR will tell you this under the demographics section). Lastly, avoid schools that have a 10% MCAT yield of 34+. The MSAR has all of this data for each MD school that has had a graduating class. The above probably only cuts out 20 MD schools so you should have plenty that you'll be competitive for.

 

[DrivenAndDangerous]

Check to see what % of a schools students have research experience. If it's close to 100% I would probably avoid applying there as they are probably looking for students with substantial research experience. Also, assuming you are not URM, avoid schools that have a high URM yield (MSAR will tell you this under the demographics section). Lastly, avoid schools that have a 10% MCAT yield of 34+. The MSAR has all of this data for each MD school that has had a graduating class. The above probably only cuts out 20 MD schools so you should have plenty that you'll be competitive for.

Now that I've added I'm AZ resident, does that change things? I'm not too knowledgeable on the "unspoken rules" of some schools (i.e. on another thread I just read Brown "only" accepts their own graduates & UCF is hard for OOS's). Ps - not an URM

I'll go anywhere that takes me, but ideally I'd like to be in California or at least the West coast. I'll apply to U of Arizona & Mayo (although Mayo is probably long shot w lack of research) since they're here, but how does California feel about AZ residents?

 

[Goro]

I suggest the following. Nothing wrong with aiming high; the ones I have in bold are schools where your MCAT score is 2-3 points below their avg, and your GPA is ~ the same as the school avg. Thus, proceed with caution on these, but I feel you're in striking distance for some.

U VM
U Toledo
Miami
St. Louis
Albany
Albert Einstein
Rochester
Rush (note: very service/experience oriented with a 150hr service requirement. Avg student has 800 hours of community service, and >1800 hours of health care exposure.)
Rosy Franklin
NYMC
EVMS
Wake Forest
Jefferson
Temple
Drexel
Creighton
Tulane
USC/Keck
Dartmouth
MCW
Loyola
USF Morsani
UCF
Emory
BU
Mayo
Duke
Case
JHU
Pitt
Northwestern
NYU
Mt Sinai
Vanderbilt
Columbia

Hofstra.
Uniformed Services University/Hebert (just be aware of the military service commitment)

Your state school(s).

4.0

 

[DrivenAndDangerous]

I suggest the following. Nothing wrong with aiming high; the ones I have in bold are schools where your MCAT score is 2-3 points below their avg, and your GPA is ~ the same as the school avg. Thus, proceed with caution on these, but I feel you're in striking distance for some.

U VM
U Toledo
Miami
St. Louis
Albany
Albert Einstein
Rochester
Rush (note: very service/experience oriented with a 150hr service requirement. Avg student has 800 hours of community service, and >1800 hours of health care exposure.)
Rosy Franklin
NYMC
EVMS
Wake Forest
Jefferson
Temple
Drexel
Creighton
Tulane
USC/Keck
Dartmouth
MCW
Loyola
USF Morsani
UCF
Emory
BU
Mayo
Duke
Case
JHU
Pitt
Northwestern
NYU
Mt Sinai
Vanderbilt
Columbia

Hofstra.
Uniformed Services University/Hebert (just be aware of the military service commitment)

Your state school(s).

Your response is well-respected! Thank you! Any reason why UCLA and UW don't appear on the list?

 

[bears1992]

Now that I've added I'm AZ resident, does that change things? I'm not too knowledgeable on the "unspoken rules" of some schools (i.e. on another thread I just read Brown "only" accepts their own graduates & UCF is hard for OOS's). Ps - not an URM

I'll go anywhere that takes me, but ideally I'd like to be in California or at least the West coast. I'll apply to U of Arizona & Mayo (although Mayo is probably long shot w lack of research) since they're here, but how does California feel about AZ residents?

I have no idea lol. I'm only familiar with DO schools but the MSAR will tell you what percent of out of state students make up their matriculate class. The MSAR actually tells you how many instate and out of state applied, how many of each were given interviews and how many of each matriculated. It also will tell you all the states that make up their matriculate class so a school with 300 seats that has students from only instate and the surrounding states would give you a good idea if you have a shot there. Any "unspoken rules" for medical schools like: only accepts instate, only accepts URM, only accepts students with heavy research, only accepts science/math majors, only accepts high mcat, only accepts high GPA, (the list goes on and on) are found in the MSAR. Your 4.0 and high MCAT will probably allow you to choose your area. Even with your stats, the admission process can still be sort of a crap shoot but I think you'll have a good cycle. Most people use MSAR to find their list of schools that might accept them, in your case, you just need to it to find the 20ish schools that you should avoid.

 

[Goro]

U WA selects for students from the WWAMI states.

Everyone in the US wants to go to UCLA.

 

[Toutie]

Your response is well-respected! Thank you! Any reason why UCLA and UW don't appear on the list?

Pretty sure his reasoning is:
UW accepts very few OOS that are not one of the WWAMI schools.
And UCLA...well, because all of the CA schools are very difficult to get into for anyone, IS or OOS.

Edit...oops, looks like Goro beat me by mere milliseconds with the identical answer! 😀