Advice please on applying to DO schools

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Hi. I'm a california resident who is interested in osteopathic medicine. I've applied to COMP & TUCOM (which are both in cali), PCOM, NYCOM, and LECOM. My GPA is 3.7 cumulative and 3.4 science, and my MCAT scores are 7VR, 10PS, S, 10BS. My extracurricular activities are somewhat meager: I've worked as a nurisng assistant in convalescent hospitals for only 5 months. I definitely learned a lot there and it inspired me, but it's pretty much the only extracurriculars I have. Osteopathic schools tend to look strongly at extracurriculars and I'm worried that mine might be too weak. Plus I'm worried about my MCAT verbal score. Do I have a good chance at any of these schools or not? Any helpful comments would be great. Thanks!

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Because most osteopathic schools tend to have a preference for in-state applicants, you'll have an easier time with TUCOM and COMP than with LECOM, PCOM, or NYCOM, but your numbers are competitive and so that won't keep you out.

Have you gotten a letter of recommenation from a DO to send to these schools? If you haven't, now's the time to start that. How meager is meager? What have you done?


Tim of New York City.

 

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Tim,
As far as background experience goes, I've put in about 175 hours training as a nursing assistant, which I know isn't much. I also did a two-day training connected to hospice care and I've shadowed a family practice DO for about 2 months (who, incidentally, I'm sure will write me a good letter of rec). The grapevine tells me that typically people applying to DO schools have very strong background experience. If my MCAT verbal was higher then I wouldn't worry as much about mine. Do you think my file has a chance of ending up in the 'strong potential' pile of the admissions committee? Oh, I should also mention that, in all honesty, my personal statement is probably about average compared to others. It's not too stand-outish but it's also not cliche like or primitive; I was just honest about me, my beliefs, and my experiences. Anyway, given what I've told you, do you think I have a chance at getting an interview?

Chris

 

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Chris,

I'd continue working with the DO and look into finding some mroe work connected to your hospice care training. My point is you went through a 2-day training course to work in hospice care, and to not capitalize on that for the sake of getting into med school would have been a waste of two perfectly fine days (unless it happened to rain those two days).

You might also be asked about the hospice care training, and to say that you went through training to be a CNA, a hospice care worker, and then stopped after only five months could be a potential red flag -- AVOID those!

Other than that, there's not much more you can do I suppose. What you want to be able to say during your interview is that you're still doing something, even if your record hasn't been so relatively hot.

I again reiterate that your GPA and MCAT are competitive and that if you were a PA resident, I'd say you'd definitely get a PCOM and LECOM interview. If you were a NY residnet, I'd say you'd definitely get a NYCOM interview. But you're a CA resident, so I think you'll definitely get a COMP and TUCOM interview, and from what I know of NYCOM admissions, you'll be looked at sometime in January/February (they generally interview their top in-state applicants very early, and then move on to top out-of-state applicants).


Tim of New York City.

 

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Tim---
Thanks for the info. It's helpful. I'm figuring I'll have lots to talk about if I make it to an interview. Currently I've been working as a CNA and mental health worker at a psychiatric hospital, but I've only been doing it for about 6 weeks. I'm going to continue working with the DO too. Another thing, though, is that I didn't turn in my primary application to aacomas until Aug 30, so that means I still haven't received any secondaries yet. As a consequence I'm probably a little late in the game. I'm just hoping that the spots don't fill up too quickly by the time my file is complete. In fact someone just informed me that TUCOM generally fills up 95% of its seats by the end of december and its saves the remaing 5% for exceptional applicants. Yikes! Anyway thanks again man. I welcome any other info you think is important. Peace.

 

[turtleboard]

I'm sure it's true that TUCOM will fill 95% of its class by December, but so will most medical schools in the country. The difference here is that there will be people who were accepted to TUCOM early on who will end up going somewhere else. Remember that a school offers many, many more acceptances than there are spots in the class based on a projected yield for that year.

The Director of Admissions at NYCOM, for instance, will tell you during the post-interview talk that their yield is less than 50%, somewhere around 33% for an eventual class of 250+ I believe. So you can see that they offer a TON of acceptances.

I wouldn't worry that their seats fill early. It'll happen everywhere you apply. As for submitting your AACOMAS "late," my friend who's currently an MS2 at NYCOM mailed in his AACOMAS in mid-January and got in in July (waitlisted, of course, but he still got in!).

Good luck.


Tim of New York City.