Advice for BME major with 3.82 cGPA & ~3.93 sGPA

[CaliBalla]

Hey guys,

So I plan on applying this upcoming cycle and am wondering if there's anything else I can squeeze in the next few months before June that I may be missing from my app or lacking.

I graduated from UCI the summer of 2010 with my B.S. in Biomedical Engineering and two minors in Management & Biological Sciences. My overall cumulative GPA was a 3.82 and I calculated my science GPA to be roughly a ~3.93.

I plan on taking the MCAT 04/29 and have been scoring in the 34-38 range on Kaplan practice tests and a couple of 36 on the two AAMC tests I've taken so far. Hopefully I can improve a little bit more in the next 5-6 weeks before the big day.

Awards/Scholarships

- Regent's Scholar at UCI ($9k/yr full ride, but probably not so much anymore w/ rising tuition!)
- Waltos Group Future Leader Scholarship ($2500)

Work Experience During College

- 3 years as an EMT for an ambulance company while going to school (24hrs/wk --> 3000+ total hours)
- 2 weeks volunteer EMT for an ambulance company down in Costa Rica (~50-60 total hours)
- 8 months doing a business/management internship with College Works; basically ran a small painting company training and managing employees, meeting with clients and signing contracts, etc. to eventually run a $25k business (20hrs/wk --> 500-600 total hours)
- 7 months working for a small biomedical company as an intern in R&D working on the development of their main product (20hrs/wk --> 500 total hours)
- 1 year of working with a biomedical company specializing in lasers for eye surgery my senior year developing a computer simulation & model for one of the components of their product

Leadership & Involvement

- Philanthropic chair for a quarter and member of several committees for a fraternity (4 years)
- IFC Basketball (champs 2yrs in a row for what it's worth!)
- American Leadership Association - member of this organization where I attended a five day program featuring seminars with successful businessmen and leaders in their fields
- Member of a couple of BME organizations, no leadership involvement in them though
- Member of motorcycle club

Work & Involvement NOW

- ER Tech at a hospital since last October (2 x 12hr night shifts a week --> ~600 total hours so far)
- Stem cell research at UCI-MC since last July (20-25hrs/wk --> 800-900 total hours)
- Hired to work as an ER scribe at Hoag but haven't started yet because I don't have time with MCAT studying and sleep in general!

Letter of Rec Writers

- 2 science: Bio prof & BME prof
- 1 nonscience: Management prof
- 1 research: MD who is Chief of his dept. at UCI Med
- 1 clinical: MD who I work with, Chief of Emergency Medicine

Sorry for the long post but I wanted to be as thorough as possible. I am debating whether or not to do a few shifts of shadowing with a PCP or Internist as I know that's what a lot of adcoms are looking for, but I feel like my extensive clinical experience would make this superfluous.

Anyway, thanks for any advice that you wise people can bestow on me

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[LuciusVorenus]

Honestly you're doing pretty awesome as is. All I can think of is some shadowing. I don't think that was part of your list and apparently some schools are pretty adamant about it, but you do have a lot of clinical hours so who knows.

 

[ReptarBar]

a little too much ER work. maybe switch your work up at the hospital and get shadowing in a bunch of different specialties. do that and get a decent mcat score = youre set.

 

[Catalystik]

I'm with Lucius on this one. I'm sure you're seen a lot of what ER docs do, and when you start scribing, more ER doc shadowing is embedded in the activitiy. But to have your application appeal to the greatest number of schools, some formal shadowing is needed as well, to give you the broadest perspective of what being a doc is like, so you can answer interview questions based on that type of experience. If you just did a day with an office-based primary care doc and maybe one subspecialist or hospitalist, I think you'd be fine.

 

[CaliBalla]

With some shadowing in a couple of other specialties and a hypothetical MCAT of 36+, do you think I have a good shot at top 20 and CA med schools?

 

[Catalystik]

With some shadowing in a couple of other specialties and a hypothetical MCAT of 36+, do you think I have a good shot at top 20 and CA med schools?

Schools that highly value a substantive research experience (like the top twenty and many Ca schools) may prefer to see more than a year of research. But with luck your leadership and strong clinical experience might appeal to them anyway. Your stats certainly would.

 

[PremedGunner]

non-clinical volunteering maybe?

 

[CaliBalla]

Schools that highly value a substantive research experience (like the top twenty and many Ca schools) may prefer to see more than a year of research. But with luck your leadership and strong clinical experience might appeal to them anyway. Your stats certainly would.

My "lab" research will be a year by the time I apply, but my engineering research and design is another ~1.5 year on top of that, so hopefully they take that into account...

I had to work during college to support myself, so I didn't really have time to do too much extra lab research on top of my engineering course load. Hopefully that's taken into consideration too...

Edit: I also wanted to mention that I've spent a TON of time in my research at UCI Med thus far (more so the first few months than now since I've got the MCAT coming up) so aren't overall hours considered vs. # of years? I can do research for 4 years at 5 hrs/wk and not have the same amount of experience as 25-30 hrs/wk for a year.

 

[Catalystik]

My "lab" research will be a year by the time I apply, but my engineering research and design is another ~1.5 year on top of that, so hopefully they take that into account...

That should do it.

 

[CaliBalla]

I just wanted to bring back my post as there are some new additions and I also had a question regarding shadowing a PCP.

The new addition to my application is that I recently got hired as a Trauma Tech at UCI Med Ctr which is perfect timing so I can add that to my primary.

In addition to this, I have the opportunity to shadow a PCP who has a private practice that focuses on overall wellness, preventative medicine & fitness. My question regarding this experience is what would be considered a sufficient amount of hours for this experience? I don't wanna do one shift and call it a day, but at the same time I have so much experience with ER doctors and a lot of the patients they see are in the ER for primary care service that I feel it would be somewhat comparable experiences. My guess is ~30-40 hours?

Now I'm just waiting on my MCAT score from 4/29, which was a brutal exam...I was scoring 36-38 on the practice exams (both kaplan & AAMC) including a 38 on AAMC 11 and I felt like crap after the real thing. Hopefully my score isn't too far off from my practice score range...

 

[Catalystik]

I have the opportunity to shadow a PCP who has a private practice that focuses on overall wellness, preventative medicine & fitness. My question regarding this experience is what would be considered a sufficient amount of hours for this experience? I don't wanna do one shift and call it a day, but at the same time I have so much experience with ER doctors and a lot of the patients they see are in the ER for primary care service that I feel it would be somewhat comparable experiences. My guess is ~30-40 hours?

I think that sounds good.

What is the difference in duties between a Trauma Tech and an ER tech?

 

[liveoak]

- IFC Basketball (champs 2yrs in a row for what it's worth!)

fantastic. most impressed by this tidbit.

 

[CaliBalla]

I think that sounds good.

What is the difference in duties between a Trauma Tech and an ER tech?

Pretty much the same, it's just a fancier name because it's at a level one trauma center

I just get to see cooler & bloodier calls than a normal hospital where I'm just an ER Tech!

Thanks for the compliment liveoak