Am I applying to too many damn schools?

[balopathic45]

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4.0 cGPA, 524 MCAT

250+ hours expected clinical
solid research
solid non-clinical

california resident; non-URM (white)

I'm applying to 30 schools but i fear i won't have time to do secondaries, etc if I start getting flooded with them:

1. Harvard University
2. Stanford University
3. Johns Hopkins University
4. University of California— San Francisco
5. University of Pennsylvania (Perelman)
6. Wash U St. Louis
7. Yale University
8. Columbia University
9. Duke University
10. University of Chicago (Pritzker)
11. University of Michigan— Ann Arbor
12. University of California— Los Angeles (Geffen)
    1. Charles Drew
13. New York University
14. Vanderbilt University
15. University of Pittsburgh
16. University of California— San Diego
17. Cornell University (Weill)
18. Northwestern University (Feinberg)
19. Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
20. USC (Keck)
21. UC Davis
22. UCI
23. Emory
24. Mayo
25. Case Western
26. Rochester
27. Albert Einstein
28. U Miami
29. Tulane
30. Dartmouth (Geisel)

 

[gyngyn]

Probably.
Eliminate at least 5.
You can always pre-write secondaries...

 

[balopathic45]

Probably

do you have any general recommendations? should i remove some of the higher tier schools?

 

[gyngyn]

do you have any general recommendations? should i remove some of the higher tier schools?

No. Keep the most of the CA schools and eliminate at least 5 of the OOS ones you like least.
You don't really sound like CR Drew unless you are not sharing something, though.

 

[Turkishking]

Balotelli is bad.

 

[ridethecliche]

I'd apply to all of them and pre-write secondaries. Better to have too many interviews, than too few.
You can always turn a couple down.

But you're a helluva strong applicant it seems so 20-25 apps is probably plenty.

 

[Lucca]

If I were you I would cut down this list to 20 (or, at least, 25). 80 LizzyM basically if you are competent in every other area you should be fine everywhere.

 

[WedgeDawg]

Remove Charles Drew (keep UCLA by itself).

Remove Miami, Tulane, Dartmouth (unless one of these is your undergrad school), and one more of your choice. If you're not applying to your undergrad's med school, add that.

Moving to WAMC.

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

Why Einstein?

 

[musicalfeet]

I personally applied to 31 schools, but that being said, my stats were weaker than yours by a long shot. It's totally possible to pre-write if you start your PS early on. You also get the benefit of proofreading and getting better at writing as you work through your secondaries throughout the year. I worked on my PS from about now until April, then pre-wrote secondaries until July (I had them all ready to go and turn around within 3 days once secondaries started coming in).

That being said, 31 schools cost me about 5k for primaries...and I have no idea how much I spent on secondaries (it was too scary to sit down and calculate). In retrospect, I probably should have eliminated schools I didn't care that much about, but only added because they were "in my range". I think schools can tell how enthusiastic you are about their school...

In your case, I think you can afford to pick only the schools you're truly interested in and not feel like you have to add schools "just because".