Any changes I should make to list?

[MedApp2016]

Hey, quick summary and list - not really sure what other schools to look into; very interested in continuing research throughout medical school (100% requirement for me to want to go to the school is a solid research program), would ideally like to be in or very close to a city (never lived in an actual city before!), and at this point love all things to do with the nervous system (especially neurosurgery!), though cardiovascular/heart is a close second - personal reasons are pushing me more towards neuro though. Any suggestions at all? I'm at a loss. I'm applying this June, recently graduated senior pursuing thesis masters + other research during gap year. Thanks very much.

cGPA: 3.948, sGPA: 3.95
MCAT: 522 (132/127/132/131)

Employment:
Chemistry Tutor, 3years; 1500+ hrs at public tutoring center

Research:

1. Electrophysiology research, 1500hrs; 1yr (probably 3000+ over the next year); honors thesis (done) which is being enhanced for publication (not submitted); also continuing work the entirety of the application year for master's thesis and hopefully other publications (I LOVE my resarch haha, patch clamping is awesome I absolutely love it).

2. Clinical research (at a pediatric center), 150hrs; 1yr (probably 300+ by end of the next year); have helped with various research studies in Emergency Department; starting my own study in either neurology or neurosurgery or maybeee cardiology (not submitted to IRB yet). Very excited for this, have a few ideas I think my PI will love!!

3. Socioeconomic/clinical research (at large rural clinic for low-income/uninsured), 100hrs; 6 months (at least another 100 by years end): transportation research: determination of transport issues for patients, what they may be, how patients arrive at our clinic, how many appointments patients miss due to transportation, barriers to transportation; etc & integration research (why patients do not use both our medical and dental services; only xx% of our medical patients use our dental)


Clinical volunteer:

1. Emergency Department Volunteer: ~50-80hrs (need to confirm); 1 summer

2. Low-income clinic volunteer: probably 20hrs of volunteering; helping nurses, APRNs, on top of the research time

Non-clinical volunteer:

1. Mentor elementary school children: ~40-50hrs; 1 semester

2. Disaster relief trip through school (within United States): ~200hrs; fundraising, awareness, meetings = 30hrs, 1 week immersive trip ~170hrs; 6 months

3. Mission trip with my home church: ~170hrs, 1 week; haven't had time to do more but really want to if I can soon!

Misc:
Compete in weightlifting!

List:
Boston University
Colombia
David Geffen, UCLA
UCSD
Harvard
Johns Hopkins
NYU
Perelman, UPENN
Stanford
UChicago, Pritzker
UCONN
UMichigan
UVA
WashingtonU
Vanderbilt
Yale

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[GrapesofRath]

Looks fine but I'd add a couple more schools with stats in your range that have big classes(Pitt, Northwestern, CWRU come to mind). This is a good idea especially since the non research parts of your app in terms of clinical experience and service(you can read on here how many ADCOMs view mission trips) is on the lighter side.

 

[MedApp2016]

Looks fine but I'd add a couple more schools with stats in your range that have big classes(Pitt, Northwestern, CWRU come to mind). This is a good idea especially since the non research parts of your app in terms of clinical experience and service(you can read on here how many ADCOMs view mission trips) is on the lighter side.

Hm interesting, whats wrong with mission trips? One is through my school and the other my church, they were nearly free with all the fundraising we did, and it was an absolutely amazing way to help; nearly finished all the construction on a church in one and were able to rebuild a ton of property on the other. Whats the downside?

 

[GrapesofRath]

Hm interesting, whats wrong with mission trips? One is through my school and the other my church, they were nearly free with all the fundraising we did, and it was an absolutely amazing way to help; nearly finished all the construction on a church in one and were able to rebuild a ton of property on the other. Whats the downside?

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/thr...ion-trips-looked-down-upon-by-adcoms.1165196/

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/medical-mission-trip.1165139/

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/medical-mission-trip-inquiry.1129699/

You can take a look at some of the analysis here(the search function will provide more if you are curious)

A couple tidbits from gonnif to consider in particular
"Not so much to condemn work but rather to express the disparity of the how they are viewed by the students as a highly valuable EC that will impress an adcom and how adcoms look at many of them without much enthusiasm, primarily because of the many that are over marketed and hyped as a medical vacation. Students may invest much time and money in these programs believing it will be a great asset on their medical school application and most of the time its is nary a blip."

"These are all pieces of a puzzle or pattern. How impactful they are and how well you can express in a coherent, concise and compelling application showing a strong pattern of motivation, commitment and achievement using these pieces is what matters."

"Any activity, situation, certification, or event that becomes common by premeds and can done in a "fast and cheap" way (ie, without motivation, commitment and achievement) brings the perception to adcoms that all of them are suspect. Now, the last few years, medical missions have popped up in a similar way and lost value to applicants.

Basically, any thing that you do that doesnt have depth and substance, that doesnt show motivation and commitment, can really be looked at as EC filler"

The term "medical tourism" to describe such trips is seen repeatedly.

In short, the general point is in and of itself doing one of these isnt something to stress over. But to rely on it to actually enhance your application? That's where things get dicier. But like gonnif said, presentation of what you did, how you discuss it and what it highlights about you is what is most relevant. Just be aware of the inherent biases that come when these trips are brought up

 

[gyngyn]

Hm interesting, whats wrong with mission trips? One is through my school and the other my church, they were nearly free with all the fundraising we did, and it was an absolutely amazing way to help; nearly finished all the construction on a church in one and were able to rebuild a ton of property on the other. Whats the downside?

Missionary work will be viewed positively by some (e.g. Loma Linda).
Others may see it as taking work away from locals/proselytizing .

 

[WedgeDawg]

What state are you a resident of? Because if you're not a CT resident, I wouldn't apply to UCONN and if you're not a CA resident, I would leave out UCSD and possibly UCLA while replacing them with UCSF.

BU is likely to be low yield for you based on stats, so I would drop it unless you really want to remain in Boston.

You have a solid app, but your school list is both short and top heavy, which is the main reason that people with your stats don't get into medical school.

I would add more top schools (as Grapes said, Case Western, Northwestern, and Pitt are all great ideas, and I would add Cornell and Mt. Sinai as well to round out the NYC crew) and I would also supplement with a mid tier base of 5-7 schools. You already have UVA there which is great; other solid additions include Rochester, Einstein, Emory, and USC-Keck.

Also...

Colombia

come on dude you're better than that

 

[Goro]

Primarily religious missions are to be included in your app to explain what you were doing during the time you were serving. This service does not hurt your application. If you are able to describe how these experiences developed your self-understanding or a deeper respect for the value of others' beliefs, these experiences (not the "mission") can give you a more interesting application.


Missions whose primary purpose is the conversion of others to your belief system fall flat as a resume builder, even though you have a constitutional right to pursue this activity.

Hm interesting, whats wrong with mission trips? One is through my school and the other my church, they were nearly free with all the fundraising we did, and it was an absolutely amazing way to help; nearly finished all the construction on a church in one and were able to rebuild a ton of property on the other. Whats the downside?

 

[MedApp2016]

What state are you a resident of? Because if you're not a CT resident, I wouldn't apply to UCONN and if you're not a CA resident, I would leave out UCSD and possibly UCLA while replacing them with UCSF.

BU is likely to be low yield for you based on stats, so I would drop it unless you really want to remain in Boston.

You have a solid app, but your school list is both short and top heavy, which is the main reason that people with your stats don't get into medical school.

I would add more top schools (as Grapes said, Case Western, Northwestern, and Pitt are all great ideas, and I would add Cornell and Mt. Sinai as well to round out the NYC crew) and I would also supplement with a mid tier base of 5-7 schools. You already have UVA there which is great; other solid additions include Rochester, Einstein, Emory, and USC-Keck.

Also...





come on dude you're better than that

My bad! Put the post together so quickly it escaped me. Thanks for the input though, all of you. I see what you all are saying about "medical missions", fortunately these trips were nothing of the sort and I am confident I can display the wonderful effect they had on me and all we were able to do for those in need!

I'll be sure to change out some schools, and add more; though, do you really think my list is too short? If anything I was hoping to shorten it a bit or keep it at relatively the same length; it's already hundreds of dollars just to send the primary out! But I'll look into the schools you all have listed - Thanks again.

 

[GrapesofRath]

If you dont want to make this list much longer here would be my two cents on how to optimize it.

Get more bang for your buck with the two slots you have for UCLA and UCSD. Schools with big classes and big stats would be what I target here. Pitt and CWRU personally might be my two choices.
Swap Northwestern for Pritzker(Northwestern has 2X the class size)
I would probably add Tufts(there's regional New England bias here)
Keep Boston U btw
Stanford Yale and Vandy all have smaller class sizes. Swap at least one for choices like these: Einstein, Cincinnati, Rochester, Hofstra, Ohio St, Stony Brook, Keck(if it were my call IMHO Ohio St is the best option here with a rather favorable OOS app/matriculant ratio and where your stats will generate interest. Einstein would probably be the next highest yield option if I had to guess.)

I would count a dozen schools on this list that you could call "targets" and say you have a reasonable shot at getting a II. Thatll get you enough IIs

 

[WedgeDawg]

I don't think Hofstra will be particularly high yield for OP because their stats are high enough in both GPA and MCAT that the school will figure they will likely not matriculate there. Ohio state, Einstein, Rochester, and Keck are excellent options.

 

[MaxPlancker]

Your list is very top heavy. Add some more mid-uppermid tiers. Stats are good but ECs are meh unless you are on the national level for your weightlifting which doesn't appear to be the case. On your list, the bold are the ones where I think you have a decent shot. Hard to really chance for the UCs though. Consider adding some schools 20-40 that have stats that fit you as your ECs are more on par there than the schools you have here.

Boston University
Colombia
David Geffen, UCLA
UCSD
Harvard
Johns Hopkins
NYU
Perelman, UPENN
Stanford
UChicago, Pritzker
UCONN
UMichigan
UVA
WashingtonU
Vanderbilt
Yale

 

[GrapesofRath]

Meh it's all splitting hairs really, Hofstra's 90th percentile MCAT is higher than Einstein's and around that of others and theyve been looking to raise their MCAT median. You cant really predict who's going to say those stats are "too high" for us.

If I were the OP I'd just go through MSAR and spend time researching each of these schools and coming up with where is the best fit. For a rough guide on "highest yield" just calculate OOS app/matriculant ratios. Hofstra, Keck and Emory all have unfavorable and high ratios here. Cincinnati, Ohio State, Einstein, CWRU etc it's much lower and more favorable due to both getting fewer apps and having bigger class sizes.