Advice needed

[darthertain]

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Hello all, 2024 graduate. I finally got my MCAT score 2 days ago and I scored 517. Not THE best, but I am thoroughly impressed with myself. I want to apply next year to medical school. Here are my stats:
3.45 GPA
450+ hours non clinical employment @ Student led college food pantry.
480 hours non clinical employment (yard duty monitor @ elementary school).
1000+ clinical hours (family medicine clinic referrals and other office work).
100+ clinical volunteering at a hospital, planning on getting more volunteering experiences.
2/3 LORS, 1 from clinic doctor and 1 from professor. One more shouldn't be hard to get.
So far, I believe I have a solid application. I am trying to get my hands on shadowing and research but it has been difficult. I want to matriculate by 2027, so 2026 would be the year to research and apply to medical schools. The problem is, a lot of the post-bacc research programs I have looked at have already closed their application window for 2026. I have tried emailing professors with labs and applying to research jobs but to no success. I focused most of my time afterwards on studying for the MCAT which is thankfully how I got a great score. Here come the questions:
1) Do I absolutely need research before I apply?
2) What are my chances for medical school in general?
3) If I were to use LizzyM to construct a tentative school list, which range percentage should I use?
Thank you for reading. My favorite amino acid is cysteine in case you were wondering.

 

[Faha]

Where is your state of residence? You should accumulate 50 hours of in person physician shadowing (including primary care). Research is not essential for the schools you would be applying to.

 

[candbgirl]

Was the food distribution a paid activity?

 

[darthertain]

@Faha the great state of California.
@candbgirl yes the food pantry was a paid activity.

 

[Faha]

I suggest these schools with your stats:
Vermont
Quinnipiac
Tufts
Albany
New York Medical College
Hackensack
Penn State
Drexel
Temple
Jefferson
George Washington
Georgetown
Alice Walton
TCU
Roseman
Ponce (St. Louis)
Creighton
Rosalind Franklin
Loyola
Rush
Medical College Wisconsin
Western Michigan
Oakland Beaumont
Wayne State
Arizona (Phoenix)
California University
Kaiser
Loma Linda (if you fit their mission)
USC Keck
The UCs (except Riverside unless you are from that region)

 

[darthertain]

Thank you for the suggestion! Do you think not having any research would be shooting myself in the foot here?

 

[Faha]

Thank you for the suggestion! Do you think not having any research would be shooting myself in the foot here?

Thank you for the suggestion! Do you think not having any research would be shooting myself in the foot here?

Not for most of the schools I listed.

 

[candbgirl]

You don’t mention any nonclinical volunteering. You need that be competitive at most schools. For schools like Rush and Loyola, they expect hundreds if not thousands of hours of service oriented volunteering.

 

[darthertain]

Thank you guys for the advice, I appreciate it. I am going to get more nonclinical volunteering hours.

 

[Geodon]

Dang, ONLY a 517?

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Yes, look for service off-campus. Get more outside your comfort zone than you have shown in your WAMC profile. Make yourself comfortable being with uncomfortable people. The less clinic-adjacent the better. You do have your food pantry work on campus, so you can pursue something close off-campus (see Meals on Wheels) or a different underserved population (e.g., homeless veterans).

 

[darthertain]

I am going to start volunteering as an adult literacy tutor at my local library. Is that a good one? I will also look into other opportunities as Mr.Smile12 suggested.
@Geoden yea 🙁

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I am going to start volunteering as an adult literacy tutor at my local library. Is that a good one? I will also look into other opportunities as Mr.Smile12 suggested.
@Geoden yea 🙁

With due respect, you aren't following my advice. Get more outside your comfort zone.

 

[darthertain]

Thank you, I am looking into your suggestions. I still want to tutor adults because I do believe I can make an impact in my community through tutoring. Meals on wheels is difficult because I do work full time, but I am looking into other things that involve interaction with uncomfortable people.

 

[Kobeleo62]

Thank you, I am looking into your suggestions. I still want to tutor adults because I do believe I can make an impact in my community through tutoring. Meals on wheels is difficult because I do work full time, but I am looking into other things that involve interaction with uncomfortable people.

I think what Mr.Smile12 is trying to say is you should add more experience with working with underserved communities. Try to find volunteer work at free clinics, this will get you more experience working with underserved populations where you can see their struggles such as lack of insurance, poverty, housing insecurities and etc. ADCOM's love seeing these on your application

 

[darthertain]

Thank you Naruto for the clarification. I'm looking around ATM. But I'm still going to tutor I wanna teach lol.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

If your passion is in tutoring or teaching, you are signaling you prefer being a teacher. Plenty of teachers I know work as librarians or museum curation/education. I know plenty of medical students gravitate towards any tutoring (including ESL and reading in libraries) as a side activity from intense studying, but that's not why you are going to medical school. Practically every (and I mean just about every) applicant has teaching or tutoring as an activity, including reading camps for children or adults. You are the subject matter expert in teaching English, so you are in a privileged position in your relationship. You need to be in a shared communal relationship with underserved communities to better understand their challenges.

 

[darthertain]

From my perspective, education and medicine are intertwined. I see myself a doctor in the future that can guide and teach younger doctors on how to help people. If I can learn how to communicate my ideas better and help people who have been disadvantaged in their education at the same time, I am helping my community because education is in my eyes a common good and I also get experience communicating my ideas, which can help me in the future as a doctor. Who knows, I might even become a professor of cardiology. I will still look into volunteering with more underserved populations, I see the value in your statement.
Also, the clinic I work at serves mainly immigrants and low income individuals. Although I interact with the community on a regular basis, I do honestly think there is more exposure to be had.